As the besieged country continues to strive to maintain morale high and win the PR battle against invading Russian forces, Ukraine has picked the image for a new postage stamp titled “Russian warship, go fuck yourself!”
Emine Dzheppar, the country’s first deputy foreign minister, announced the stamp commemorating the Snake Island incident, in which 13 border guards stationed on a roughly 16-hectare (40-acre) rocky island about 186 miles (300 kilometres) west of Crimea reportedly replied, “Russian warship, go f**k yourself,” when asked to surrender.
They were then attacked and believed to have been killed.
According to Dzheppar, the artist Boris Groh’s illustration earned the most votes in a competition organised by the Ukrainian postal service.
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According to an interpreter for NPR, the winning design’s artist, Borys Groh, told Ukrposhta that the soldiers’ refusal to surrender inspired him to submit a drawing to boost morale.
He said the design took him three days to complete and that if he hadn’t been distracted by the news, he could have finished it in five hours.
Groh used to dwell in a city on Snake Island on the Crimean peninsula.
He is currently in Lviv, Ukraine’s westernmost city.
(With inputs from agencies)
