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A ruined Russian T-72 tank sits on a flatbed truck outside the Russian embassy in Berlin, in February 2023.
A ruined Russian T-72 B1 tank sits on a flatbed truck outside the Russian embassy in Berlin, February 24, 2023.

Enno Lenze

  • A ruined Russian tank has been dumped outside the country's embassy in Berlin. 
  • The project was organized by two German artist-activists with the help of Ukraine's MOD. 
  • The rusted heap appeared as a vivid symbol on the anniversary of Russia's invasion of Ukraine. 

Russian diplomats in Berlin were greeted on Friday with the sight of one of their own ruined tanks, after a pair of German activists parked it outside the embassy.

The gesture came on the first anniversary of Russia's invasion of Ukraine. 

The destroyed T-72 1B tank sits at an intersection near the embassy on the city's famed Unter den Linden boulevard. It's the culmination of months of work, including a protracted legal battle, by organizers Enno Lenze and Wieland Giebel.

After Lenze first reached out to the Ukrainian authorities for help with the idea in June 2022, they responded almost instantly, he wrote on the website of the pair's museum organization, Berlin Story.

He and Giebel then battled with Berlin's municipal bureaucracy, which initially had numerous objections on the grounds of public safety, traffic and commercial concerns.

But in October last year, a court said the tank could go there temporarily as it "falls under the constitutionally protected freedom of expression," a court order read. 

A ruined Russian T-72 tank sits on a flatbed truck at night outside the Russian embassy in Berlin, in February 2023.
A ruined Russian T-72 tank sits on a flatbed truck outside the Russian embassy in Berlin, in February 2023.

Enno Lenze

The tank is supposed to be a vivid reminder of Russia's much-feared — but ultimately disastrous — attempt to take Kyiv in the early days of President Vladimir Putin's invasion.

"The broken tank signifies downfall. Ukraine is going to be Putin's Stalingrad," Giebel told Reuters.

Lenze and Giebel said that it was destroyed by an anti-tank mine on March 31 near the village of Dmytrivka, in Chernihiv Oblast. 

According to Lenze's post, it had to be demilitarized, with parts welded over and all remnant explosives removed, before it could be displayed in Germany.  

The Ukrainian Ministry of Defense helped organize the project on their side, according to Reuters.

Shipping it to Berlin in time for the grim anniversary of the war became a race against time, as further administrative issues arose at the border, but it finally arrived.

Ukraine's Defense Minister Oleksii Reznikov called it "a symbol of [Russia's] failure" in a Twitter post thanking Germany for the gesture. 

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Two Germans parked a mangled Russian tank in front of the Russian embassy in Be…