Tchaikovsky and Moscow Mules off: consumers vent fury over Ukraine invasion

A day or so after Vladimir Putin launched his invasion of Ukraine, Sergiy Skorokhvatov decided it might not be a bad idea to go online and clarify what kind of food was on the menu at his Russian and Ukrainian restaurant in central Madrid.

Skorokhvatov, whose parents are still in Kyiv, managed to get Google to take down the political reviews and photos. He is now weighing up whether to change the name of the restaurant his family bought almost four years ago.

The driver, who was charged with criminal damage, said he had felt compelled to act after seeing the pictures that went around the world of a woman and her children lying dead on the street in Irpin.

A priest was also arrested last week after dousing the embassy gates with red paint.

Local councillors are taking a longer-term approach, and have voted to change the name of the street where the embassy is situated from Orwell Road to Independent Ukraine Road.

As he waited for the lunchtime crowd to arrive in Madrid on Thursday, Skorokhvatov tried to explain how he felt about the manner in which some people were responding to the war in his homeland.