The Slovenian Charge d'Affaires at the Embassy in Kiev, Boštjan Lesiak, was forced to remove the Slovenian flag outside the embassy because of its resemblance to the Russian flag.

"When we arrived in Kiev, it was quite windy, and when we proudly hoisted the Slovenian and European flags, they waved beautifully in the wind," he said in an interview with Slovenija TV.

"But when the wind stopped, members of the National Guard and later the Ukrainian police came and asked if the Slovenian flag could be temporarily taken down because it looked too much like the Russian flag," he said.

The diplomat assured that otherwise, Ukrainian officials had taken good care of security. "We are accommodated in a nearby hotel, where we have the basic conditions for living and working," he said.

Lesiak regularly reports to the Slovenian Ambassador, who works in the Polish city of Rzeszow near the border with Ukraine.