Australian Painter Forced to Remove His Mural Showing Russian, Ukrainian Soldiers Hugging - Photos

The two sides of the conflict have not been conducting negotiations since April. Moscow says it is ready to resume them, but Kiev has yet to respond to the call to continue peace talks.

Australian artist Peter Seaton was forced to paint over his latest work, dubbed "Peace Before Pieces" showing a Russian and a Ukrainian solder hugging each other, after pressure from the local Ukrainian community and Ambassador to Australia Vasyl Myroshnychenko, who branded the work "offensive". The mural, was painted on a building in Melbourne, just a couple days ago, but the artist has been forced to remove his creation.

❌🖌A mural recently unveiled in #Melbourne was slammed for not reflecting the concept of fighting 🇷🇺to the last Ukrainian. Artist had to destroy his work.

🤫New normal for freedom of artistic expression in 🇦🇺: check with 🇺🇦Embassy before painting.https://t.co/9xaUTFBhoH

— Russia in Australia (@RusEmbAU) September 5, 2022

Seaton apologized for painting the mural and explained that his intention has always been to emphasize the importance of reaching peace. He noted that he has dedicated a lot of thought to the issue before coming up with the painting and said he discussed it a lot with other people.

"The original intention was to focus our efforts on this war towards a negotiation of peace, to avoid nuclear disaster […] I felt it was the best way I could portray a message of peace which is something I am fundamentally about," Seaton said.

His efforts, however, did not impress Ambassador Myroshnychenko, who claimed the peace-promoting work of the artist was "utterly offensive to all Ukrainians" and he said that Seaton should have "consulted the Ukrainian community in Melbourne" before painting the mural. Myroshnychenko demanded that the work be promptly removed.

The Russian embassy in Australia reacted to the news of mural's removal sarcastically:

"A mural recently unveiled in Melbourne was slammed for not reflecting the concept of fighting Russia to the last Ukrainian. The artist had to destroy his work. New normal for freedom of artistic expression in Australia: check with Ukrainian Embassy before painting," the embassy said.

Russia proposed a diplomatic resolution to the conflict to Ukraine soon after the start of the special military operation on February 24th, but after a month of talks, Kiev halted the process for good.

Instead, the Ukrainian leadership has since been claiming it would fight Russia until it seizes the territories it sees as theirs and will hold talks only after that. Moscow maintains that it is always ready to return to the negotiations table but sees no initiative on the Ukrainian side.