A Montreal City Councillor Keeps Blasting Ukraine's Anthem In Front Of Russia's Consulate

Opposition to the Russian invasion of Ukraine has swept the globe. But on one Montreal street, that opposition has become a neighbourhood affair. Montreal City Councilor Serge Sasseville lives across the street from the Russian consulate on avenue du Musée in Ville-Marie. Since March 15, he has been going out every day at noon to play the Ukrainian national anthem in front of the building.

Serge Sasseville told Radio-Canada's Tout un matin that he had seen protestors gather and leave posters and flags by the consolute since the conflict first began on February 24. Then every night, he said, consulate officials would come out and remove them, even the objects that were on public property.

"It was as if nothing had happened," he said on Tout un matin.

So he decided to make a more recurrent demonstration. He goes out at noon daily to play the Ukrainian anthem three times from his phone and what he described as a small Bose speaker.

He had earlier put the flag of Ukraine in his windows and said some neighbours soon followed suit.

Eventually, the consulate attempted "unsuccessfully," in Sasseville's words, to drown him out by playing its own music from an intercom on its front gate.

"Some may wonder whether it is useful to show our support for Ukraine in front of the Consulate General of the Russian Federation on the weekend or when the offices are closed," Sasseville wrote in a Facebook post on March 20. "The answer is: YES."