Game of 'cat and mouse' plays out after Ukrainian flag projected onto Russian embassy in Washington DC

A group of activists projected the Ukrainian flag onto the Russian embassy in Washington DC, only for Russian officials to reportedly try and drown it out with a spotlight of their own.

Activists beamed 14 theatre stage lights from across the road onto the building in the capital on Wednesday night.

Benjamin Wittes, editor-in-chief of Lawfare and senior fellow at The Brookings Institution, shared updates on Twitter throughout the demonstration.

Before sundown on Wednesday evening, he quipped: “It’s like a big white canvas in the sunset, just waiting to be painted.”

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As the night wore on, embassy officials caught on to what the activists were doing and appeared to chase the flag across the building with their own floodlight.

The officials didn’t succeed, and the blue and yellow flag of Ukraine continued lighting up the side of the building.

Wittes compared the chase to a game of cat and mouse.

In a Twitter thread posted after the demonstration in the early hours of this morning, Wittes said he hoped that “maybe it will give someone something to smile about in Ukraine.”

During one of the live streams, Wittes said: “It was the most invasive, obtrusive, obnoxious thing that I could do to Russian diplomats that does not molest or do violence to their prerogatives as diplomats in the United States. I don’t want to make it comfortable to be a Russian diplomat in the United States right now,” the Washington Post reports.

Twitter enjoyed the show of solidarity, with one social media user branding the display “perhaps the most entertaining political statement ever.”

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