The new "war stamp", depicting a lone Ukrainian soldier flipping the bird at a grey Russian warship, perfectly captures the country's spirit of defiance through one of the iconic moments of the 56-day-old war.
The image is based on the response of Roman Hrybov, the commander of a State Border Guard Service unit of 19 who were stationed on Snake Island, a Ukrainian outpost in the Black Sea, at the start of the war.
On February 25th, the guided-cruiser Moskva, the flagship of Russia's Black Sea Fleet, approached the island and demanded that the Ukrainian garrison capitulate. "This is a Russian warship," someone says in an audio recording of the exchange between Commander Hrybov and the Moskva. "I ask you to lay down your arms and surrender to avoid bloodshed and unnecessary deaths. Otherwise, you will be bombed."
Cdr Hrybov can be heard playfully asking a member of his unit if he should make his position clear.
He then responds with a line that is now on billboards and bumper stickers all over war-ravaged Ukraine: "Russian warship, go fuck yourself1"
Cdr Hrybov and the other guards were initially believed to have been killed, though it turned out they had been taken prisoner. All 19 returned to Ukraine in a prisoner swap late last month, and Cdr Hrybov was awarded a medal.
But the story gets better! A week ago, the Moskva, which had fired cruise missiles at Ukrainian cities throughout the first seven weeks of the war, sank! Russia claims the warship accidentally caught fire and then sank while being towed to dock for repairs, but Ukraine says it went down after being struck by two anti-ship missiles.
Слава Україні! Героям слава!
No comments:
Post a Comment