(Copenhagen) The statue of the Little Mermaid, emblem of Copenhagen and Denmark, was vandalized overnight from Wednesday to Thursday, with a large Russian flag painted on its base.
A flag has been painted under unknown circumstances on the stone on which the statue of the heroine of storyteller Hans Christian Andersen, located in the port of Copenhagen, is placed.
The Danish police have announced that they have opened an investigation, without mentioning any clues as to the origin of this apparent sign of support for Moscow in the midst of the war in Ukraine.
A few puzzled tourists were photographing the vandalized statue on Thursday morning, in bright sunshine.
Located at the water’s edge along a relatively isolated promenade, the bronze statue has been the target of regular damage of all kinds since its installation in 1913.
In 1964, she was beheaded for the first time, without her head ever being returned. In 1998, vandals had again cut off his head, then returned, before the statue was the target of an explosion in 2003.
It has been tagged or painted many times, most recently in 2020 with the mysterious inscription ” racist fish (“racist fish”).