• News
  • Wrecked tank installed outside Russian embassy in Berlin

Friday 24, February

Wrecked tank installed outside Russian embassy in Berlin

In a controversial protest, the ruined shell of a T-72 tank has been installed outside the Russian embassy on Unter den Linden.

The wreckage of a Russian tank has been installed in front of the Russian embassy on Unter den Linden. Photo: IMAGO / A. Friedrichs

Friday 24, February

On Friday, there were 456 new Covid-19 infections reported in Berlin. The seven-day incidence currently stands at 70.4 cases per 100,000 people.

Wrecked Russian tank installed outside Russian Embassy in Berlin as war protest

On Friday morning, the wrecked shell of a destroyed T-72 tank was installed outside the Russian embassy on Berlin’s Unter den Linden as a controversial act of protest against the war in Ukraine. It was exactly one year ago today that Russian troops crossed into Ukrainian territory and the current phase of this crisis began. The installation is just one of many different displays of solidarity, protest and commemoration taking place across Berlin in the coming days, but it might be the most headline grabbing.

They have murdered, looted, displaced millions of people and just keep going every day

The initiators of the project are Enno Lenze and Wieland Giebel, who run the Berlin Story Bunker museum. The Berlin government had initially tried to block the installation on political insensitivity – and critics of the scheme have pointed to the tastelessness of displaying the wreck of a vehicle in which people may have died – but Lenze and Giebel intend to bring the consequences of the war to the front door of the aggressor. “They have murdered, looted, displaced millions of people and just keep going every day,” Giebel told the press.

The Russian T-72 tank was destroyed in the early phases of the war in the battle for Kyiv. As the Russian troops invaded Ukraine, some wrote military slogans on their vehicles dating back to the Second World War. One such message was “To Berlin”, referencing the victory by the Red Army over Nazi Germany. As Lenze points out, the Russians got their wish. “Their tanks are in Berlin,” he commented. “Just differently than they thought.”