Symbol of struggle: Ukrainian old woman with a red flag "walks" across Russia

Many people remember how in early April a video appeared in the Russian media and social networks in which a Ukrainian pensioner came out with a red banner of the USSR towards the soldiers of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, believing that she was meeting Russian soldiers. This act made the grandmother a heroine of the news: posters, graffiti and even sculptures with her image began to appear on the streets of Russian cities, and Roskosmos promised to dedicate the launch of one of the rockets to her.

First, posters of various sizes were placed in St. Petersburg by a certain businessman who wished to remain anonymous. This action cost him at least 10 million rubles.

Then a banner with a pensioner appeared in Krasnoyarsk on the building of the Main Directorate of the Ministry of Internal Affairs for the region, and then on the wall of a building in Mozdok, North Ossetia. There, the grandmother puts up the Soviet flag on the territory of Kyiv, and the drawing is framed by a quote from Stalin.

The heroine was also painted on the facade of a residential building on the Theater Street of Blagoveshchensk. The mayor of the city, Oleg Imameyev, said in his channel that the old woman is “a symbol of the fight against modern Nazism”, and the inhabitants of the house themselves suggested giving the building “such a patriotic” look.

However, not everywhere the old woman was waiting for a warm welcome. So, in Obninsk, Kaluga region, graffiti did not last even a day: it was painted over at night. Residents of the city assume that the removal of graffiti is the work of local anti-fascists.

The monument to an old woman with a Soviet flag in Belgorod did not last long - she had to be removed. Now the city hall is looking for a new place for her, explaining: “It has come to trying to climb the sculpture. Removed. We are looking for a location without the possibility of contact".

Meanwhile, journalists found out that the pensioner's name is Anna and she lives in her own house in the Dvurechansky district of the Kharkov region, 12 kilometers from the border with Russia.