Graffiti artist appears to confirm presence in war-torn country after unveiling latest work on Instagram
From The Guardian, November 12, 2022
Banksy appears to have confirmed he is in Ukraine after revealing his latest artwork on Instagram.
Speculation had been mounting that the anonymous graffiti artist was in the war-torn country after a series of murals appeared in the town of Borodianka, near Kyiv.
One mural depicted a man resembling the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, being thrown to the floor during a judo match with a young boy.
Another showed two children using a metal tank trap as a seesaw.
However, the mural that Banksy used to reveal his presence in the country is of a female gymnast balancing on the rubble of a damaged building.
The Bristol-based artist, whose work sells for millions of pounds, posted three images of the mural on Instagram on Friday, with the caption simply reading: “Borodyanka, Ukraine”.
Borodianka, a town north-west of Kyiv, was pummelled by Russian bombs at the beginning of the invasion.
Russian troops, rolling in from the Belarusian border 200 miles to the north, occupied the town in February. Together with Bucha, Irpin and Hostomel, Borodianka was one of the towns hardest hit by Russia’s bombardments. It was liberated in April.
Ukrainian investigators found dozens of mass graves where the bodies of civilians – tortured and killed – had been buried. Moscow had unleashed cluster munitions and powerful unguided bombs in the populated areas of Borodianka, destroying dozens of buildings, with some being gutted and split into two.
Since then, the town has been the focus of reconstruction efforts, with several tower blocks demolished as a result of damage caused by the fighting.
Where will it all end? The conflict in Ukraine appears further than ever from resolution. Nuclear threats, mass graves, the sense that both sides are “all in”.
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