Russia Supporters Lay Flowers on Captured Tanks, Stoking Tensions in the Baltics

A destroyed Russian T-72 tank in Vilnius, Lithuania.

Photographer: Petras Malukas/AFP/Getty Images
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Three Russian tanks that were captured by Ukrainian forces and shipped to the Baltics last week for display are stoking tensions after supporters of Russian troops began laying flowers on the vehicles.

In the Lithuanian capital Vilnius, a fistfight broke out between two men after one laid a flower at one of the heavily damaged T-72 tanks and another tried to remove it. The deputy mayor of Vilnius later put a garbage container by the tank that says “for carnations, candles and Soviet nostalgia.”