ukrainian postage stamps with banksy's graffiti commemorate one year of russia's invasion

Ukrposhta on 1,500,000 copies of postage stamps

On February 24, 2022, Russia invaded Ukraine. The escalation stemmed from the entrenchment of Russian troops in the Ukrainian autonomous republic of Crimea in February 2014. A year later, Ukraine’s post office Ukrposhta prints out 1,500,000 copies of Banksy-graffiti postage stamps that illustrate Ukraine’s resilience against their attackers.

The stamp shows a picture of a young boy and an older man in judogi, or the uniform of the martial arts judo. The young boy flips the old man in a skillful throw, the metaphor of Ukraine defeating its opponent regardless of his size, skills, and even weaponry. The post office says that the imagery recalls the story of David defeating Goliath and feels that this particular work of Bansky illustrates its country’s unwavering determination to fight back.

images courtesy of Banksy and Ukrposhta

Ukrposhta says that Banksy visited Ukraine anonymously in the fall of 2022 and spray painted his Judo graffiti on the wall of a destroyed building in Borodyanka. He continued with several more in the suburbs and dedicated his series to the war. Banksy’s works open discussion on societal issues and lure attention to global events. His postage stamp for Ukraine commemorates Russia’s full-scale invasion of the Eastern European country.

Ukrposhta accompanies its Banksy-designed postage stamps with a message to its people. Written on the lower left corner of the postage stamps, the bold words ‘FCK PTN!’ in Cyrillic appear. For the Ukrainian postage stamps’ first run, the post office will deliver them in an artful envelope with a postcard inside. The team has also presented a hoodie named ‘Bulletproof People’ to go along with the postage stamps which materialize Ukrainian citizens’ strength and struggle.

Ukrposhta, ukraine’s national postal service, prints out 1,500,000 copies

FCK PTN! Written in cyrillic

Ukrposhta takes its postage stamps on social media and follows its release with a caption for its audience. ‘A year of resistance. Painful, ragged, fierce, persistent. But the best word to describe it is Ukrainian. They wanted to make us afraid every day – instead, we improve our fighting skills every day. Although we now count the new year differently: from February 24 to February 24. Banksy, a world-renowned street artist and political activist, paints new graffiti on the walls, which reads the main thing: Ukraine must win.’

The postage stamps with ‘FCK PTN!’ and Banksy’s graffiti are a charity issue of Ukrposhta, and the post office says that the collected charitable funds will be directed to humanitarian needs, in particular to educational institutions that suffered from the invasion. The post office has also opened its selling pool for the postages stamps on its official website and a number of online stores.

Banksy visited ukraine in 2022 to create his graffiti works