The artist posted three images of his mural depicting a gymnast balancing on an existing pile of rubble on his Instagram captioned ‘Borodyanka, Ukraine’. He later posted a video, showing a male hand painting some of the other murals, within which he talks to locals affected by the conflict. A woman explains in the video that one of the murals has been painted near the site of the kindergarten that her daughter attended before the breakout of war. She says to her daughter, “don’t cry, honey. We already cried so much; we don’t have many tears left.” Borodyanka was invaded by Russian soldiers in February this year, before being liberated in April.
Another mural shows a little boy in a martial arts uniform flipping an older man onto his back. Some have made the connection between the man in this painting and Russian President Vladimir Putin, as his honorary black belt was revoked earlier this year by World Taekwondo. Despite this being a logical connection, Banksy has not commented on these speculations.
After confirming his authorship of the gymnast mural, and the other six paintings, many Ukrainians took to social media to thank the artist for his support in face of the ongoing invasion. However, this is not the first time the artists’ work has been associated with Ukraine. In March, a print of one of Banksy’s most famous pieces, CND Soldiers, was auctioned at £81,000 to raise money for a children’s hospital in Kyiv. This is the first collection of Banksy works to pop up since last summer’s Great British Spraycation, which saw paintings appear all over British coastal towns.