Baltimore Street Art

Artist: ANGRY

Location: Graffiti Alley

This “ANGRY” elephant is painted blue and yellow, the colors of the Ukrainian flag. This artist is protesting Russia’s invasion of Ukraine on February 24th, 2022 and ongoing war. In the bottom right of the elephant, he wrote “FUCK PUTIN”.

After the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991, thousands of nuclear arms were left on Ukrainian soil by Moscow.  However, in 1994, Ukraine made the decision to completely denuclearize under the Budapest Memorandum.  In exchange, fellow signers, the US, the UK, and Russia, agreed to guarantee Ukraine’s security.  Nevertheless, in 2014, Russian under the leadership of so-called President Vladimir Putin blatantly violated this agreement by invading and annexing Crimea and fomenting a separatist revolt in the eastern provinces of Donetsk and Luhansk under the pretense that they were defending the rights of Russian-speaking peoples in the region. 

Fast forward to 2022 and Russia has launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine complete with air forces, battleships, tanks, and military men on the ground.  Entire Ukrainian cities have been leveled; a shopping center was bombed with civilians inside; and many, many Ukrainians have lost their loved ones. Ukraine has been called the “Shield of Europe” and the “Breadbasket of the World.”  Donate to the Ukraine war effort here and donate to aid refugees displaced by the war here. Hopefully, this terrible war can come to an end soon.