STA, 31 March 2022 - The Ukrainian security forces have beefed up security in the Kyiv street where the Slovenian Embassy and several other embassies are located, so charge d'affaires at the Slovenian Embassy Boštjan Lesjak again raised the Slovenian flag after reporting it had to be removed because it looks too similar to the Russian flag.
The Slovenian Foreign Ministry explained for the STA today that the flag had been removed by the Ukrainian authorities because of its similarity with the Russian flag on Monday, 21 March - six days after PM Janez Janša and his Polish and Czech counterparts visited Kyiv. The EU flag remained up.
After arriving in Kyiv on 27 March, Lesjak raised it again as a symbolic gesture marking the reopening of the Slovenian Embassy only to be asked by the Ukrainian security authorities and police patrolling the area to temporarily remove it for security reasons because "it could incite unwanted incidents due to its similarity with the Russian flag".
In the meantime, security was beefed up, so Slovenia's interim charge d'affaires again raised the flag and now it is to stay there.
The ministry added that the Slovenian Embassy was obligated to follow the instructions of local security forces and provide for the safety of the embassy employees.
Lesjak told public broadcaster RTV Slovenija last night that he had to remove the Slovenian flag after two days. "When we arrived in Kyiv, it was quite windy and when we proudly hoisted back the Slovenian and European flags, they fluttered nicely in the wind." But when the wind stopped, the flags dropped and members of the national guard and later the police came to ask whether the Slovenian flag could be removed temporarily "because it resembles the Russian flag too much", the diplomat said.
Opposition SocDem MP Matjaž Nemec labelled this a "capitulation" of Prime Minister Janez Janša's diplomacy earlier today, noting that "there is no state without symbols and there is no state without a flag".
