The Moscow authorities will rename a plot of land near the British Embassy in honor of one of the pro-Moscow republics of eastern Ukraine, the Moscow City Hall said Monday.
The territory, which runs along the Smolensk embankment between Protochny Zaulok and the exit to Novy Arbat Street, will now be called “LPR Square”, the mayor’s office said.
The announcement came after Russian forces seized the strategic city of Lisichansk, effectively establishing control over the Luhansk region of eastern Ukraine four months after Moscow’s invasion began.
The place for the new “LPR Square” was chosen by the residents of the city in a survey on the state voting portal “Active Citizen”.
Of approximately 109,000 residents of Moscow who took part in the survey, 56.85% supported the renaming of the square near the British Embassy. Other possible locations were areas near the embassies of Germany, Lithuania and Belgium.
The British Embassy in Moscow has not yet commented on this statement.
In June, the Moscow authorities renamed the open space in front of the US Embassy to “Donetsk People’s Square”, formally changing the address of the embassy. US officials have since removed the embassy’s address from their website, referring only to geographic coordinates.
Civil servants in Moscow were allegedly ordered by their employers to vote for renaming the square near the US embassy in honor of separatist Donetsk. information received the independent publication “Mediazone”.
Great Britain and the United States have been among Kiev’s closest allies since the beginning of the war with Russia.
President Vladimir Putin officially recognized the Donetsk and Luhansk “people’s republics” as independent states shortly before he invaded Ukraine on February 24.
But most of the international community recognizes the territories controlled by the separatists as part of Ukraine.
