The Russian Consulate in New York City was vandalized Friday, with the building splattered in red paint.
NYPD received a call just after 1:30 p.m. about criminal mischief at the building, located on East 91st Street, the NYPD said in a statement to CBS News. Red paint was sprayed across the facade of the building.
Responding officers observed the vandalism but did not make any arrests but the investigation remains ongoing. NYPD said the incident has been deemed a possible bias incident.
Russian President Vladimir Putin proclaimed earlier Friday that four Ukrainian regions will be annexed and become a part of Russia.
Putin said Russia would never surrender control of the Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions and warned in a speech that Russia would protect them as part of its sovereign territory with “all available means.”
Putin’s treaty to annex the four regions was met with international condemnation. Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy announced that his nation was submitting an “accelerated” application to join the NATO military alliance.
