British urban artist Banksy has confirmed that he has created seven murals in various locations across Ukraine, including the capital Kyiv, the suburb of Irpin and the town of Borodyanka – among the places hardest hit by Russian bombing.
Speculation rose that the unnamed artist was in the war-torn country after three works were seen last week. One mural shows a man who looks like Russian President Vladimir Putin being thrown to the ground during a judo match with a young boy — Putin has a black belt in the sport. Another work shows two children using a metal tank trap as a seesaw, while a third mural, painted inside the ruins of a bombed-out building, shows a gymnast.
Banksy has already confirmed these, as well as four other jobs. The rest include a woman in a bathrobe, hair in curlers, wearing a gas mask and a fire extinguisher; a bearded man taking a shower; and another piece in which Banksy appears to have incorporated existing graffiti of a penis, transforming it into a nuclear warhead carried in the back of an armored truck.
>Borodyanka, a town about 54 km northwest of Kyiv, was besieged by Russian forces at the start of the invasion and subjected to aerial bombardment. It was recaptured in April, and Ukrainian investigators later found dozens of mass graves where the bodies of civilians, who had been tortured and killed, had been buried. There have also been calls for investigations into alleged Russian war crimes in Irpin and neighboring Bucha.
The new works are Banksy's first public murals in over a year, although this is not the first time his work has been associated with Ukraine. In March, a print of one of his most famous anti-war pieces, CND Soldiers, was sold at auction, raising $106,505 for a children's hospital in Kiev. The original mural first appeared outside the Houses of Parliament in London in 2003 during protests against the war in Iraq.
