Montreal city councillor blasts Ukrainian anthem in front of Russian Consulate

Montreal city councillor Serge Sasseville stood in front of the Russian Consulate early Tuesday afternoon, flipped on a small speaker and turned up the volume to play the Ukrainian anthem.

The musical protest, punctuated by slogans shouted in support of Ukraine, has become a ritual for Sasseville, one he has been repeating daily for the past week.

“So around noon every day I get out of my house with my bose and my phone and I go down the stairs of my house and I look at the residence of the consulate of Russia.”

The councillor’s house is across the street from the consulate in downtown Montreal, and he said in an interview he feels a personal duty to publicly show his opposition to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

“When I began playing the anthem they started playing music to cover me,” explained Sasseville. “We have to make it publicly known all across the city that we support Ukraine we support peace and we’re against that senseless war.”

Consulate staff confirmed Tuesday they’ve seen and heard him several times outside their building’s gates but said they have no time for what they called a “childish game.”

Related articles:

• Why a no-fly zone won’t happen, and what comes next in Ukraine?

• Russia to face more sanctions over Ukraine invasion: Canada’s foreign affairs minister

A representative from the consulate said that since the invasion, members of the Russian diaspora in Montreal have received hateful messages and been victims of intimidation and vandalism.

Demonstrators have been protesting in front of the consulate every Saturday for the past several weeks.

Many have left Ukrainian flags and splattered red paint on its gates.

Most recently a Ukrainian teacher from Terrebonne Quebec installed a string of 1,000 paper cranes made by her students – a Japanese legend says that hanging 1,000 cranes on a thread will make wishes come true. For this one, the wish for peace.

“I saw at night the paper cranes being removed from the employees of the consulate of Russia even though it was on public domain.

“Those cranes were made by the students of Ola Rishnikova, so their wish for peace in Ukraine could come back to life and it’s in the recycling of the general consulate of Russia.”

The Russian Embassy has since been seen taking down the cranes and other items left on embassy grounds.

Thursday, a member of the Consulate told CityNews, “he Consulate (Maison Grier build in 1911) is situated in a historic district of Montreal and receives Russian and foreign clients daily, we consider it our duty to maintain its aesthetic appearance and remove all things that are not meant to be there.

“We have nothing against peaceful protests with or without musical accompaniment, provided they do not imply vandalization of our property. However, as we are not a decision-making body and have purely administrative functions, the efforts of the protesters seem to be in vain.”

The United Nations refugee agency said today more than 3.5 million people have fled Ukraine since Russia’s invasion began on Feb. 24, turning the conflict into the worst displacement of Europeans since the Second World War.

-With files from the Canadian Press