The performance was shown as part of an anniversary celebration for a local patriotic military club at the Dobrynin Palace of Culture in Yaroslavl on Sunday (29 August). As an unsuspecting audience looked on, cadets in camouflage fatigues hoisted a shirtless man above their heads and placed a concrete block with the inscription “death to f****ts” on his stomach. The men then proceeded to smash the symbolic object with what appeared to be a sledgehammer, Radio Free Europe reports. “We view these attacks as a call to murder,” said Taras Sidorin, head of the Yaroslavl branch of the veterans group Defender. The performance was so shocking that Sidorin filed a police report on behalf of a number of Russian veterans’ organisations. “The statement to the law enforcement agencies has already been written,” he said. “There were small children in the hall. This behaviour is simply unacceptable.” According to Igor Derbin, director of the Palace of Culture, the performance did not have the venue’s approval. “We are outraged,” he told 76.ru after the show.