After the liberation of the Kiev, Kharkiv and Kherson regions, Ukrainians discovered graffiti and inscriptions left by Russian soldiers on the streets and inside the buildings they had occupied. The Ukrainian cultural association Mizhvukhamy documents these findings in wall proofan open archive created for future research and analysis of the Russian invasion.
“These writings need to be documented before people wash them away, which happens quickly because people don’t want to live next to the traces of the occupation,” said Anastasia Olexii, project manager of the archives. Hyperallergic in a video call. Olexii remained in Kiev during the occupation of the region and visited nearby villages as soon as the Russians withdrew in early April 2022. It was then that she and her colleagues, Mizhvukhamy founder Pavlo Haidai and philosopher Oleksandr Filonenko, discovered the various graffiti and decided to start documenting them.
THE wall proof The team collected more than 500 registrations during expeditions to liberated areas by monitoring open sources and inviting people in frontline cities to contribute. Some of the stories locals share are quite disturbing, the team admits, referring to an episode in a destroyed library where Russian soldiers “found the librarian’s lipstick in the drawer and made an inscription with it.”
Among the data collected, certain topics and motifs predominate: the letters “Z” and “V”, used as military symbols in the Russian campaign, obscenities about NATO, insults directed at Zelenskiy and numerous Soviet insignia, such as than hammer and sickle. , Red Star and “1941-1945” (dates of the so-called Great Patriotic War).
“Our favorite category is apologies. They make the most grammatical mistakes there,” said Roksolana Makar, a researcher on the wall proof crew. “Furthermore, these apologies are often meant to evade accountability.” She gives examples: “It’s war, I’m sorry” or “Sorry for the mess, but it’s okay, the Americans will help you clean up”.
However, with the war raging, apologies have become rare. Instead, recent inscriptions appeal to nationalist pride and military bravado.
“Often, in colonies where [Russians committed] especially many war crimes, the inscriptions are associated with the glorification of Russia and the military,” Makar added. In a flood of aggressive propaganda, some of the inscriptions are openly bloodthirsty – like the one quoting a russian song which has 1.3 million views on YouTube: “I will burn other people’s villages with a happy smile on my face,” he says.
wall proof aims to be an additional resource to verify the identity of Russian soldiers coming to Ukraine. Some inscriptions can provide information about the geography and demographics of those drafted into war as well as reveal soldiers’ brigade numbers, making them easier to identify. Together with other evidence, archival data may become a substantial ground for future war crimes allegations.
THE wall proof The team sees its data primarily as a source of international communication and artistic and academic research. The team originally planned to recreate the inscriptions in Europe to show the narrative the Russians are perpetuating in their invasion of Ukraine. However, the idea ultimately proved futile: many Russian immigrants spoke out the same statements in their own graffiti abroad.
“All this clearly indicates the intentions of the Russians,” Olexii explained, “not Putin or the authorities, but ordinary people who serve in the army but also live in exile for a long time.”
