Owners of Russian restaurant in Kent struggling as business drops amid Ukraine war

The owner of a Russian restaurant in Ramsgate says it's been struggling since the start of the Ukraine war because some customers are reluctant to support them.

Rimantas Taralis, who is in fact from Lithuania, says bookings have fallen and the company has received some unpleasant messages on social media.

The restaurant, called CCCP, serves food and drinks originating from the former United Socialist Soviet Republic.

• Ramsay and Tanya are worried their business may not stay afloat following Brexit, Covid and the latest impact of people shunning their restaurant due to the Ukrainian war

Ramsay Taralis and Tanya Taraliene have run CCCP in Chatham Street for 12 years and when Ramsay is not in the restaurant, he works as an on-call firefighter for his local fire station.

They are donating all their profits one day a week to Ukraine, where he and his wife have family and friends.

Russia has said that it has set a deadline for Monday morning for Ukrainian forces to lay down their arms in the besieged port city of Mariupol.

"Lay down your arms," Colonel-General Mikhail Mizintsev, the director of the Russian National Center for Defense Management, said in a briefing given out by the defence ministry.

The toll of Russia's invasion of Ukraine on its people has been immeasurable, and the suffering, unimaginable.

Millions of people have become refugees or been displaced in their own country, while others have joined a growing resistance across the country, determined to defend their homeland.