Sometime over the past two days the sunflowers that were planted and growing outside of the Russian Embassy in Washington, D.C. were ripped from the ground and left sitting on the sidewalk.
Benjamin Wittes tweeted about it after seeing the handiwork of he and a group of pro-Ukraine friends who planted the floral symbol of the country under attack by Russia.
\u201cThen, a couple of nights ago, this happened 3/3. @TheGeorgetownr @wcp @washingtonpost @HuffPost\u201d— Chiara Pappalardo\ud83c\udf3b\ud83c\uddfa\ud83c\udde6 (@Chiara Pappalardo\ud83c\udf3b\ud83c\uddfa\ud83c\udde6) 1658689100
\u201cThe damage\u201d— Benjamin Wittes (@Benjamin Wittes) 1658696531
\u201cThis is about as accidental as a missile strike on a mall!\u201d— Benjamin Wittes (@Benjamin Wittes) 1658698560
The sunflowers were planted in the public part of the sidewalk and were growing and flowering when they were removed.
\u201cWe planted sunflowers outside the Russian embassy to protest a genocidal war back in April.\nThe Russians left them alone, rather to my surprise.\nThey grew, they flourished.\u201d— Benjamin Wittes (@Benjamin Wittes) 1658702859
Wittes streamed from Twitter that he was outside the embassy on Sunday afternoon and invited anyone in the area to come join him in replanting.
\u201cReady to get started. Come join me.\u201d— Benjamin Wittes (@Benjamin Wittes) 1658695864
A crew showed up shortly to help.
\u201cThe great \u2066@WindsorMann\u2069 shows up to Plant Back Better!\u201d— Benjamin Wittes (@Benjamin Wittes) 1658698482
And they took the old Sunflowers and disposed of them on the stoop of the Embassy.
\u201cWe deposited the uprooted dead sunflowers on the embassy\u2019s stoop\u2014making sure to honor the Secret Service\u2019s request from last time that we not cross into Russian territory.\u201d— Benjamin Wittes (@Benjamin Wittes) 1658702859
Wittes noted that he fears they'll be torn up again, but said that he'll do his best to ensure they're replanted every time.
