War in Ukraine: A work attributed to Banksy was almost stolen in Kiev

Ukrainian police managed to foil an attempt to steal a famous work on Friday. British artist Banksy, stenciled on the outskirts of Kyiv, local officials said. “(Friday) in Kostomal, a group of people tried to steal a painting by Banksy. They (felt) cut the works on the wall of a house destroyed by the Russians,” announced Oleksiï Kouleba, governor of the Kyiv region, in a press release posted on Telegram.

His social media post was accompanied by a photo showing a wall with the exterior cladding, orange paint, cut off. Here he is stenciled standing on a chair wearing a gas mask. According to Oleksiï Kouleba, “several people were arrested on the spot” by the Ukrainian police and “the painting is in good condition and in the hands of the police”.

“Eight people have been identified,” Kyiv regional police chief Andrii Nebitov said in a separate statement. “All are in the age group of 27 to 60 years. They were residents of the cities of Kiev and Cherkasy, located 200 km southeast of the capital, he described in a telegram, adding that “a preliminary investigation into property damage has been opened.”

In mid-November, Banksy posted images on his Instagram account of a stencil work painted on a bombed-out building in Borodianka, a suburb of Kyiv that has become a symbol of Russian atrocities.

At the beginning of November, several stenciled drawings in the style of Banksy appeared in and around Kyiv. “Banksy’s works are under police protection in the Kyiv region,” Oleksiy Koleba said in his press release.