The mayor of Vilnius said Thursday the Lithuanian capital will name the small road leading up to the Russian embassy "Ukrainian Heroes Street" to send a clear message to the Kremlin.
The move comes as Russia's offensive against its pro-Western neighbour entered its second week.
Calling Russian President Vladimir Putin a "Nazi", Vilnius Mayor Remigijus Simasius said "we want to tell him that Ukrainians really exist and that their society are the true heroes."
"That street plate on the Russian embassy will remind Putin that The Hague awaits him," he told AFP, referring to The International Criminal Court which prosecutes those accused of war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide.
The International Criminal Court in the Hague has already begun investigating possible war crimes in Ukraine. Lithuanian prosecutors have also launched their own probe.
The embassy currently takes its address from nearby "Latvian Street", whose name will not change. Instead a hitherto nameless smaller road leading straight to the embassy will acquire the Ukrainian moniker.
Simasius said the city council will adopt the change next week.
"The business card of every staff member of the Russian embassy will now have to honour Ukrainian heroes," he wrote on Facebook.
He added on Twitter that he suspects the postal service "will not necessarily deliver the letters if the address is given incorrectly".
This will not be the first time Vilnius has used signs to get their point across to Russia.
In 2018, the city renamed a square outside the embassy after Boris Nemtsov, a prominent opposition figure gunned down near the Kremlin a few years earlier by unknown assailants.
Lithuania and fellow Baltic states Estonia and Latvia are all small EU and NATO members that have long been wary of Russia, their Soviet-era master.
Fearing Russia will target it next if Ukraine falls, the Lithuanian government has said it will increase defence spending to 2.5 percent of gross domestic product this year, up from just over 2 percent at the moment.
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