For over a year, Ukraine has withstood a continued campaign of aggression and invasion from neighboring Russia.
With that conflict as the backdrop, tensions boiled over at United Nations talks in Turkey Thursday between Russian and Ukrainian delegates.
The incident started in the lobby when Valery Stavitskiy, the secretary for the Russian delegation, reached into a photo op and snatched a Ukrainian flag that was being displayed.
Oleksandr Marikovski, a Ukrainian delegate, pursued Stavitskiy and took the flag back, punching and slapping him as he retrieved it.
In a post on social media after the scuffle, Marikovski wrote, “Paws off our flag, paws off Ukraine…”
The video was authenticated by CBS News Friday, who got confirmation from Ukraine’s U.N. Ambassador Sergiy Kyslytsya and Russia’s First Deputy Ambassador Dmitry Polyanskiy, who claimed Ukraine had been provoking Russia during the meeting.
Russian news agency TASS reported that Stavitsky was attended to by a doctor following the incident.
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