Windows smashed, paint spattered at Toronto store posting pro-Russian symbols

Vandals attacked a Toronto storefront early Tuesday morning, smashing glass and spreading red paint in front of its door after an online furor over pro-Russian symbols that appeared on social media tied to the business.

Surveillance video obtained by CTV News Toronto shows two people exchanging something just before the glass appears to shatter off-camera and then running in different directions.

Toronto police officers surveyed the damage at D’Mila Accessories at Richmond Street West and Portland Street around midday on Tuesday, finding two sets of footsteps in paint that could be seen going north and south.

“I was surprised,” said Mike Stein, who operates an electric bicycle retailer next door to the attack. “I walked up this morning, saw the plastic bag on the door here, saw the red and the huge puddle of paint, and it was a bit of a shocker.”

Toronto police told CTV News Toronto in an e-mail that on Monday around 4:45 p.m. police received a report of a store selling items with “offensive symbols.”

Const. Jenifferjit Sidhu added that about 1 a.m. Tuesday, police received a report of damage to a store.

“The Service’s Hate Crime Unit is aware and the local division will continue to investigate to establish the full circumstances,” Const. Jenifferjit Sidhu said.

An Instagram page with photos of the DMila merchandise had been updated about four weeks ago with a T-shirt, flask and cup with the symbol “Z” and words in Russian that translate to “Support Ours.”

“Z” has been a symbol for the Russian military in the invasion of Ukraine. In a retreat from Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv, Russian soldiers have left behind bodies with bound hands, close-range gunshot wounds and signs of torture — a scene that has brought international condemnation and allegations from the Ukrainian side of “genocide.”

Clothing or other merchandise with those symbols could not be seen through the store windows.

“We weren’t ever selling clothing, not with that signature,” said a man who answered the door at the unit.

Asked if his Instagram had been hacked somehow, the man said, “No, it was not.” When asked to explain the presence of the symbols, the man said, “I don’t want to explain it,” and shut the door.

Orest Zakydalsky, a senior policy advisor of the Ukrainian Canadian Congress, said in an interview he does not want to see

“We have seen what these horrible symbols mean. To see this be glorified in any way, which is in effect propagating that symbol, is shocking and offensive, not just to our community, but to everyone,” he said.

But he said vandalism is not the way to deal with the symbols in a country that values freedom of expression.

“I don’t think smashing windows is a correct reaction,” he said. “I think the more important thing for Canada to do is to provide Ukraine with the weapons it needs to defend itself from Russian aggression.”

Richard Powers, an Associate Professor at the Rotman School of Management, said there’s nothing illegal about promoting Russian symbols or even selling merchandising with those symbols.

But the store runs a profound reputational risk, aligning itself with a regime whose military is now being accused of war crimes.

“These are atrocities. At this stage it borders on unethical and is going to have huge effects on their reputation,” Powers said, pointing that many other businesses have gone the other way, including the LCBO who removed Russian vodka from its shelves.

“They have to apologize, make a donation to a humanitarian cause, some kind of penance to make it clear they are really serious about this."

A building representative told CTV News Toronto that the damaged structure was common property in the building, and the estimated $10,000 cost would not likely be paid for by D'milla, but by all unit members as a whole.