'Russian Banksy' Uses Street Art To Denounce Ukraine Conflict

People walk past murals that say "Sky without rockets" (with a field of sunflowers, a national symbol of Ukraine), "Double portrait," and "Nostalgia," created by local artist Vladimir Ovchinnikov in the Russian town of Borovsk, some 115 kilometers southwest of Moscow, on December 7.

Since his retirement in 1999, Vladimir Ovchinnikov, 85, has painted scores of murals depicting residents, historical figures, and victims of Stalinist-era repressions.

But one mural of a girl in a blue and yellow dress, the colors of the Ukrainian flag, as a bomb falls onto her home from above with the word "Stop" beneath her, fell afoul of new laws passed by the Russian government that effectively criminalized opposition to the military campaign in Ukraine.

A billboard promoting the Russian armed forces stands in the background as Ovchinnikov paints a new mural in Borovska on December 7.

Ovchinnikov told Reuters that his mural of the Ukrainian girl was painted over and he was ordered to pay a 35,000-ruble ($554) fine for the offense of "discrediting the Russian military," which carries a maximum penalty of five years in prison.



 

A peace dove created by Ovchinnikov adorns a wall in Borovsk.

Unperturbed, Ovchinnikov painted a new piece where the Ukrainian girl once was, writing the word "bezumiye" ("craziness" in Russian), spelled with a Latin letter Z, which has become a symbol of what Moscow calls its "special military operation" in Ukraine. The police promptly painted over it.

In place of the painted-over mural, he drew the words "pozor" (shame), "fiasco,"  and "basta" (enough), each with a Latin Z.  Each in turn was painted over by the police.


 

A mural by Ovchinnikov is seen at a former prison, which is currently converted into a tourist site in Borovsk.

No stranger to politically sensitive subjects, Ovchinnikov has repeatedly tried -- with only occasional and brief success -- to publicly commemorate the town's victims of Soviet repressions with memorials and murals.

Ovchinnikov paints falling bombs on a wall in Borovsk.

Ovchinnikov believes his activism -- which includes maintaining his website dedicated to victims of political terror -- is stifled due to its being at odds with the Kremlin's preferred narrative that glorifies the U.S.S.R and its role in the defeat of Nazi Germany, while glossing over the darkest chapters of Soviet history.

A mural of two women holding hands with ribbons matching the colors of the Russian and Ukrainian flags in their hair and the word "Nostalgia" has so far been left untouched. Ovchinnikov told AFP that the mural was a copy of a Soviet-era poster, "This friendship has been destroyed, we can only be nostalgic."

 

Ovchinnikov walks near a building with his artwork depicting prominent people who made contributions to space exploration in Borovsk.

Opposition to the conflict in Ukraine is underpinned by Ovchinnikov's family history of Soviet-era repression. His grandfather was shot by Lenin's Bolsheviks in 1919, and his father was arrested during Stalin's purges in 1937.

"This topic of political repression and the closed nature of this topic, the wiping of historical memory, is one and the same thing as what is happening with Ukraine," Ovchinnikov said.