Russian President Vladimir Putin was trolled with an image of a Ukrainian flag on a digital billboard while visiting Kazakhstan, according to the Russian news outlet Meduza.
A criminal case has been launched in Kazakhstan, which shares a 7,500-kilometer border with Russia, after the Ukrainian flag was shown on a screen near the opera house in Kazakhstan's capital Astana. It was quickly shut off, remaining out of service as of Thursday morning.
Kazakhstan's Ministry of Internal Affairs has launched an investigation into the incident.
"A criminal case has been opened. All circumstances of the incident are being established. Those guilty of illegal acts will be held accountable. The Ministry of Internal Affairs continues to work on the strict implementation of the principles of law and order," it said in a post on Telegram.
Newsweek reached out to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation for comment via email.
Newsweek also reached out to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Kazakhstan for comment via email outside of business hours
Kazakhstan's State Technical Service released a statement regarding the digital billboard incident saying: "According to preliminary data, the attack was carried out from foreign IP addresses using proxy servers."
Anton Gerashchenko, a former adviser to Ukraine's internal affairs minister, posted a video of the Ukrainian flag on the digital billboard on X, formerly known as Twitter.
Putin visited Kazakhstan for the second time this year.
He was greeted with a huge Ukrainian flag on a large screen on a building. Russian media said it was a hacker attack. pic.twitter.com/SoyKuWkboj
Putin arrived in Kazakhstan on Wednesday for a Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) security summit, where he is expected to discuss Ukraine, trade, and energy cooperation, as reported by The Moscow Times.
The CSTO is a military alliance that was founded in the 1990s consisting of Russia and former Soviet republics Armenia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. Azerbaijan, Belarus and Georgia subsequently joined the alliance.
A Kremlin press release stated that after Putin and Kazakh President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev discuss the development of relations between the two countries "a Joint Statement by the Heads of State will be adopted, and a number of intergovernmental, interdepartmental, and commercial agreements will be signed."
The Kremlin has not commented on the incident with the screen depicting the Ukrainian flag.
Putin was mocked on social media last year after Tokayev made a speech in which he mispronounced Putin's name and apparently embarrassed the Russian president by making his initial remarks at an interregional forum in Kazakh rather than Russian.
The Kazakh TV broadcasting company TVCOM announced it would stop broadcasting Russian TV channels in Kazakhstan in January because of a new policy aimed at reducing access to channels "with an informational agenda."
English (US) ·