Kremlin returns crosses to Russian coat of arms after outcry at attempt to ‘exterminate the national spirit’

The Russian presidential administration has returned crosses to the online version of the national coat of arms as seen on the Kremlin website after a modified version caused a delayed negative reaction, Telegram news channel Ostorozhno Novosti reported on Wednesday.

The now corrected version of the coat of arms, which had been on the Kremlin website and elsewhere on social media since 2017, featured diamond shapes rather than crosses. The designers of the digital coat of arms said they had removed some “small details that distorted the appearance of the symbol online”.

The online backlash against the modified coat of arms began on Monday, when opera singer Sergey Moskalkov wrote on his pro-war Telegram blog that the crosses on the Russian coat of arms had disappeared, which was then picked up by several pro-war channels.

Speaking on Wednesday at the St. Petersburg International Legal Forum, award-winning film director and Kremlin propagandist Nikita Mikhalkov described the eagle on the coat of arms as a “spatchcocked chicken”, calling the replacement of crosses with diamonds on the logo an attempt “to exterminate Russia’s national spirit”.

After his comments, the Kremlin website and Telegram channel updated the image of the coat of arms, with the crosses back in place.