A Banksy mural has been removed from a bomb-damaged building and put on display in Ukraine.
Banksy, whose works have sold for millions of pounds, had painted the mural and six others last year in places that were badly affected by heavy fighting after Russia invaded Ukraine in late February, 2022.
Part of a wall in which one of the artworks was painted has been removed from a damaged high-rise building in Irpin, a town to the northwest of Kyiv.
The mural depicts a ribbon-waving gymnast in a neck brace balancing on a hole made by a Russian shell.
The artwork, which is protected by plexiglass, is now on public display in another area of the city.
Banky has painted several murals in Ukraine since the outbreak of their war with Russia.
One of the other murals shows a girl gymnast performing a handstand on a pile of concrete rubble. Another shows an old man having a bath.
Thieves tried to steal one of the murals last December by attempting to cut it off the wall on which it was painted.
The group were successful in slicing off a section of board and plaster bearing the image of a woman in a gas mask and dressing gown holding a fire extinguisher on the side of a battle-scarred building.
The Kyiv regional governor said the group was spotted at the scene in the city of Hostomel, near the Ukrainian capital, and the mural was retrieved.
“These images are, after all, symbols of our struggle against the enemy,” Oleksiy Kuleba said in a statement on Telegram.
“These are stories about the support and solidarity of the entire civilised world with Ukraine. We’ll do everything to preserve these works of street art as a symbol of our victory,” he said.
