Red Square Euro Bistro and Vodka Bar has been a Writer’s Square destination for meaty cabbage rolls, ruby ​​red borscht and a long list of vodkas for nearly 20 years. But since Putin’s invasion of Ukraine in late February, the restaurant, known for its Russian cuisine, has become a different kind of target.

“We have our fair share of trolling,” says co-owner Max Ionikh. “Most of them are nasty phone calls and emails and social media posts. They don’t know us. They’re trolling, everyone’s brave behind their computer screens.

Ionikh notes that what he experienced did not rise to the level of some of the anti-Russian discrimination that currently occurs in other parts of the country and the world. Across Europe and in major American cities, some companies have changed their names to stand out from their Russian identity. Ionikh isn’t considering changing the name of Red Square (a nod to Moscow’s largest and oldest squares); and he hopes people understand that just because someone is Russian doesn’t mean they support the war.

“This is not a Russian war against Ukraine; it’s Putin’s war against Ukraine. He is a mad individual who is waging an atrocious war against an innocent country. That’s where I fit in,” he says. “I don’t see any sane person who would be for this war… I still have family in Russia, and they are not for it.”

A Denver Police Department spokesperson said he had not heard any bias-motivated reports of harassment by Russian-owned businesses or Russian individuals in general. But the department encourages anyone who feels they are a victim of such crimes to alert the police.

At Aurora’s Ukrainian Wake & Take cafe, owner Dmytro Sokulskyi says business is business as usual at the cafe nine months since the invasion. In March, Governor Jared Polis participated in a roundtable with members of the Ukrainian community on the corporate war. Sokulskyi points to the interdependence of many Russians and Ukrainians, noting that his own family has roots in both countries.

“After the war started, nothing changed. The same number of people enter into us. We have a lot of people from Russia, Belarus, Kazakhstan coming,” says Sokulskyi. “People need to understand that this is not a problem with the restaurant [owners like Red Square’s]; it’s a problem with the government.

Many Russians left the former Soviet Union to come to the United States to pursue a better life, Sokulskyi says. “People left this country because it was a very bad life there,” he says. “That’s why they left the country. That’s why we left the country [Ukraine].”

Acting in a discriminatory or hateful manner in response to world events is nothing new. Anti-Asian hate crimes have risen sharply since 2020 and Asian restaurant owners have seen their businesses targeted. Red Square’s Ionikh says it’s hard to gauge how his restaurant’s business has been affected since the invasion began – with the past two years having been so far removed from COVID, there’s really no “normal” to compare – but he notes that Red Square has a long history in Denver and its core of regulars certainly helps.

“We’ve been here for almost 19 years, so we have tons of loyal customers who know us very well and have been very supportive,” says Ionikh. “They come to see us.”

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