"Russian warship, go fuck yourself", [a] was the final communication made on 24 February, the first day of the 2022 Snake Island campaign, by Ukrainian border guard Roman Hrybov to the Russian missile cruiser Moskva. The phrase was widely adopted as a slogan during the Russian invasion of Ukraine, as well as in pro-Ukrainian protests and demonstrations in the West. [3] Weeks later, the phrase was commemorated on a postage stamp by Ukrposhta, the Ukrainian postal service. [4]
The Ukrainian border guards were originally believed to have been all killed, but Hrybov was later confirmed by the Ukrainian Navy to be "alive and well" and had surrendered to the Russian Navy in the attack. During Hrybov's captivity, his family applied for a defensive trademark on the slogan. [5] [6] On his release, Hrybov was awarded a medal for his actions at the end of March. [7]
On 13 April 2022, one day after the first issue of the commemorative stamp, the Russian Navy's guided missile cruiser, Moskva, was critically damaged by an explosion caused by Ukrainian anti-ship missiles, and sank the following day. [8] [9] Ukrposhta responded to this event by releasing an altered version of the postage stamp soon after, with the warship removed from the scene. [10]
On 24 February 2022, the Russian flagship cruiser Moskva , [11] and patrol ship Vasily Bykov , began an assault on Snake Island, a Ukrainian island located in the Black Sea near the Danube Delta. It is a small island with a single village populated by fewer than 30 people, that had a contingent of 13 border guards, all belonging to the Izmail Border Detachment, [12] stationed on the island at the time of the attack. Moskva called on the soldiers to surrender in return for their safety, which was firmly declined by the defenders. [13] [14]
The audio of the interaction was originally posted by the Ukrainian online newspaper Ukrainska Pravda . [15] The exchange, which took place in Russian, has been translated as: [16]
Russian warship: "Snake Island, I, Russian warship, repeat the offer: put down your arms and surrender, or you will be bombed. Have you understood me? Do you copy?"
Ukrainian 1 to Ukrainian 2: "That's it, then. Or, do we need to fuck them back off?"
Ukrainian 2 to Ukrainian 1: "Might as well."
Ukrainian 1: "Russian warship, go fuck yourself."
"Ukrainian 1" is believed to be Roman Hrybov (also transliterated Gribov), [17] a member of the State Border Guard Service of Ukraine. [18] The line has also been translated as "Fuck you, Russian warship." [19] Author and academic Alex Abramovich, writing in the London Review of Books , noted that a more literal translation of "иди на хуй", transliterated as "Idi na khuy", is "Go to a dick", or more idiomatically, "Go sit on a dick". [16] [20]
Subsequently, Snake Island was captured by the Russian naval forces, and Ukraine had initially thought and reported that the thirteen soldiers defending it were all killed in the Russian assault. Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy announced he would "posthumously" award the soldiers on Snake Island with the highest Ukrainian honour, the Hero of Ukraine. [21] [22] Russia however denied those accounts and stated that all the soldiers were not dead, but had surrendered and been taken as prisoners. [23]
On 28 February 2022, the Ukrainian Navy announced that all of the border guards were alive and detained by the Russian Navy. [24] [25] On 24 March 2022, some of the Snake Island border guards, including Roman Hrybov, were returned to Ukraine in a prisoner exchange. [26] On 29 March 2022, Hrybov returned to his native Cherkasy Oblast, and was given a medal by Governor of Cherkasy Oblast Ihor Taburets for his actions. [7] [27] [28]
On 13 April 2022, Ukrainian presidential adviser Oleksiy Arestovych and Odesa governor Maksym Marchenko said that Moskva had been hit by two Neptune anti-ship missiles and was on fire in rough seas. [29] A source at the Pentagon in the US later confirmed that Moskva had been hit by Ukrainian missiles. [30] Russian state-owned news agencies said the ship was badly damaged and its crew was evacuated due to a "fire" from "detonated ammunition." [31] The ship sank while being towed to a naval base. [32] Russian troops were garrisoned on the island until late June 2022, when the Ukrainian military successfully retook the island. [33] The island currently houses a small observational detachment under Ukrainian control. [34]
Recordings of the exchange became widely circulated on the internet and went viral on various social media platforms, and it has since become a rallying cry by both the Ukrainian military and civilians protesting the invasion. [35]
US Senator Ben Sasse mentioned the phrase while speaking on the Senate floor on 28 February: "One Ukrainian after conversing with some of his colleagues a little bit on a recording that many of you may have now heard, decided to turn up the volume and he announced, 'Russian warship, idi nakhuy'. [...] That is now the rallying cry of the Ukrainian resistance". [36]
Andrew Keen writing in the Literary Hub noted that as a result of the slogan, "Even the f-word had been weaponized" and that it was now a "popular internet meme of resistance to the Russian invasion". [3] The Washington Post said that "Ukraine is fighting back, one swear word at a time". [37]
The Week compared the phrase to "Remember the Alamo" from the 19th-century Texas Revolution. [38] The Small Wars Journal likened the phrase to other notable battle taunts such as "Molon labe" ("come and take [them]"), from the Battle of Thermopylae, and "Nuts!", from the Battle of the Bulge, amongst other phrases. [39]
The phrase also has been compared to another moment in Ukraine's history, the alleged 17th-century correspondence between the Ottoman sultan and the Cossacks (popularised by the 19th-century painting by Ilya Repin Reply of the Zaporozhian Cossacks [40] ), when a Sultan of the Ottoman Empire (usually identified as Mehmed IV) [41] demanded the surrender of either the Chyhyryn Cossacks [42] or the Zaporozhian Cossacks [43] [44] (who lived in modern Central Ukraine), who allegedly refused and answered with a profanity-laden letter. [45]
Two days after the initial utterance, the Ukrainian Armed Forces blew up a railway junction connecting Ukrainian and Russian railways to prevent the Russian army from transporting military equipment and personnel into Ukraine by rail. When the Russian military asked Ukraine to restore the junction for humanitarian reasons, the Ukrainian dispatcher replied, "Russian train, go fuck yourself!". [46] The following day, a Russian ship approached a Georgian oil tanker to ask for fuel. The latter replied "Russian ship, go fuck yourself" (русский корабль, иди на хуй). When the Russians complained that they were almost out of fuel, they were told to use their oars. [47] [48]
On 24 February 2023, the Latvian MP Rihards Kols used the expression in a meeting at the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe in Vienna, in protest at the presence of a Russian delegation. [49] [50] On 27 July, Georgian residents chanted the same expression to protest against the Astoria Grande cruise ship which arrived in Batumi with Russian tourists. [51]
In March 2022, Ukrainian band Botashe released a song titled "PNH" (Ukrainian : ПНХ), which predominantly features the phrase. [52] On the 21st of that month, the Russian Ministry of Defence posted an image on its official Telegram channel that read "Never anger a Russian warship" (Никогда не злите русский военный корабль), which provoked a thousand "Russian warship go fuck yourself" comments in three hours. [53] Eight days later, the Ukrainian Ministry of Defence released the "Ukrainian military Oscars" (in tandem with the 94th Academy Awards) and gave the award for Best Picture to the sinking of the Saratov on 21 March, in Berdiansk, and to which it ascribed the mock-film title, "Russian Warship, Go F*** Yourself in Berdyansk". [54]
On 1 March 2022, Ukrposhta, the Ukrainian postal service, launched a stamp design competition on the theme of the phrase. [55] [56] On 12 March 2022, the First Deputy Foreign Minister Emine Dzhaparova announced that artist Borys Grokh's work won the popular vote of Ukrposhta for the sketch for the stamp. [4] [57] Fact-checking site Snopes said that Grokh had lived in Yevpatoria in the Crimea all his life and was studying to be an artist, but as a result of the Russian invasion of Crimea in 2014, he was forced to leave his home and had moved to Kyiv and later to Lviv. [58] Snopes quoted that Ukrposhta encouraged Ukrainians to send the stamp to their "friends abroad or send a fiery "hello" to the Russians". [58] Ukrposhta issued the set of commemorative postage stamps on 12 April. [59] [60]
The stamps feature a drawing of a Ukrainian soldier presenting the middle finger to the Russian cruiser Moskva. [61] The overall layout with the ochre land underneath the blue sea mimics the colours of the Flag of Ukraine. The special postmark accompanying the stamp shows the outline of Snake Island. The stamp design is available in both a domestic and foreign version. President Zelenskyy had his picture taken with the stamps and commented that Russian warships should only sail in one direction. [62]
The design won the Assiago Award (known as the Oscar of the Philatelic World) for the best designed postage stamp of 2022. [63]
– | ||
---|---|---|
Issuing date | 12 April 2022 [64] | |
Number by catalogue | № 1985 [65] | № 1984 [66] |
Size of a stamp | 40,5х30 mm | 40,6х26 mm |
Size of the stamp sheet | 148х86 mm | 105х105 mm |
Number of stamps per sheet | 6 (3х2) | 6 (2х3) |
Printing run of each stamp | 500 000 | 500 000 |
Denomination | W (equivalent of $1.5 USD) | F (₴23 UAH at the time) |
Printing process | Offset printing | |
Designer | Boris Groh |
Roman Hrybov and the head of the Ukrainian Post Office, Ihor Smyljanskyj, signed the first special envelopes with the stamps at the Kyiv Main Post Office. [59] [67] The stamp proved popular in Ukraine with thousands queuing on its release in Kyiv. Over 1 million were scheduled for print, of which 700,000 were sold across Ukraine by 20 April. [68] 200,000 were reserved for sale in areas under Russian occupation including Crimea, and 100,000 were reserved for sale online starting on 20 April. [69]
On 21 April, the website of the Ukrainian post office went offline, and Director General Ihor Smilianskyi reported on Facebook that the site had been hit with a distributed-denial-of-service (DDoS) attack. [70] Although Smilianskyi did not name a perpetrator, various outlets speculated that Russia's GRU was likely responsible for the cyberattack, and that it had done so in retaliation for the sale of the stamps. [71] [72]
Sierra Leone also issued similar stamps on 23 June 2022. [73] [74]
On 17 March 2022, World Trademark Review (WTR) reported that lawyers for Hrybov, through his family and the Ukrainian military, had filed for an EU trademark for the slogan in both Cyrillic script and in English. [5] The lawyers told WTR that it was needed to respond to hostile filings by clothing companies in the United States and in Lithuania who were also seeking to trademark the slogan. [5] Techdirt commented that it was a "depressing coda to an otherwise inspiring story", but that the fact that the slogan had reached meme status from which others were profiting had likely changed the situation. [17]
In Western culture, "the finger", or the middle finger is an obscene hand gesture. The gesture communicates moderate to extreme contempt, and is roughly equivalent in meaning to "fuck you", "fuck me", "shove it up your ass/arse", "up yours", or "go fuck yourself". It is performed by showing the back of a hand that has only the middle finger extended upwards, though in some locales, the thumb is extended. Extending the finger is considered a symbol of contempt in several cultures, especially in the Western world. Many cultures use similar gestures to display their disrespect, although others use it to express pointing without intentional disrespect. The gesture is usually used to express contempt but can also be used humorously or playfully.
The Russian Navy is the naval arm of the Russian Armed Forces. It has existed in various forms since 1696. Its present iteration was formed in January 1992 when it succeeded the Navy of the Commonwealth of Independent States.
Snake Island, also known as Serpent Island, White Island, Island of Achilles or Zmiinyi Island, is a Ukrainian island located in the Black Sea, near the Danube Delta, with an important role in delimiting Ukrainian territorial waters.
"Come and take it" is a long-standing expression of defiance first recorded in the ancient Greek form molon labe "come and take [them]", a laconic reply supposedly given by the Spartan King Leonidas I in response to the Persian King Xerxes I's demand for the Spartans to surrender their weapons on the eve of the Battle of Thermopylae in 480 BC. It was later used in 1778 at Fort Morris during the American Revolution, and also in 1835 at the Battle of Gonzales during the Texas Revolution.
Hero of Ukraine is the highest national decoration that can be conferred upon an individual citizen by the President of Ukraine.
Moskva, formerly Slava, was a guided missile cruiser of the Russian Navy. Commissioned in 1983, she was the lead ship of the Project 1164 Atlant class, named after the city of Moscow. With a crew of 510, Moskva was the flagship of the Black Sea Fleet and the most powerful warship in the region.
JSC Ukrainian Postal Service or Ukrposhta is the national postal service of Ukraine. It is a public company with 100% state ownership due to its strategic importance. In 1999–2015 it was a unitary enterprise of the government of Ukraine. Ukrposhta has been a member of Universal Postal Union since 1947 and the owner of national stamp issuing enterprise "Ukraine Stamps".
This is a survey of the postage stamps and postal history of Ukraine.
In Ukraine, the Word of the Year poll is carried out since 2013 by Myslovo online user-generated dictionary of Ukrainian slang and neologisms.
Donbas Post is an enterprise that operates the postal system of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People's Republic and the Luhansk People's Republic, the non-recognized entities created by Russia-backed separatists on the illegally annexed Ukrainian territories. It has been difficult for its operation due to the Russian aggression in Ukraine being upscaled to a full scale invasion of Russia and the Donbass region being a key region of the fighting.
The Karakurt class, Russian designation Project 22800 Karakurt, is a class of Russian Navy corvettes first commissioned in 2018.
Project 22160 is a series of large patrol ships being constructed for the Russian Navy. The vessels are primarily intended for duties such as patrol, monitoring and protection in open and closed seas. The first ship was laid down in February 2014 and joined the Russian Navy in December 2018. By January 2018, six ships were under construction. Between 2017 and 2022, four ships had been launched.
Admiral Makarov is an Admiral Grigorovich-class frigate of the Russian Navy, part of the Black Sea Fleet based at Sevastopol. She was laid down at the Yantar Shipyard in February 2012 and commissioned on 25 December 2017. She is the most recently built of her class, and the third of six ships that had been planned in the class as of November 2014.
The Snake Island campaign was a period of Russian occupation and military conflict for Snake Island, a small, strategically located Ukrainian island in the Black Sea. On 24 February 2022, the first day of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the Russian Navy attacked Snake Island and captured it along with its entire garrison, beginning a military occupation of the island. The attack was widely publicized when an audio clip of the Russian cruiser Moskva hailing the island's garrison over the radio demanding their surrender and being told "Russian warship, go fuck yourself" in response went viral, along with initial inaccurate reports of the garrison's deaths. Later on, it emerged that a civilian search and rescue ship trying to evacuate the soldiers was also captured along with the garrison. The ship, its crew, and at least one soldier were subsequently freed in prisoner exchanges.
Vasily Bykov is a project 22160 patrol ship of the Russian Navy, of which it was the first ship built. It was laid down on 26 February 2014 on the Zelenodolsk Shipyard at Zelenodolsk in Tatarstan, Russia, and launched on 28 August 2017. Vasily Bykov was commissioned on 20 December 2018 in the Novorossiysk Naval Base at Novorossiysk, becoming part of the Black Sea Fleet.
"Good Evening ", also known by its incipit "Good evening, we are from Ukraine", is a song by the Ukrainian electronic duo ProBass and Hardi, which was released in October 2021, as well as an informal military greeting in Ukraine, which became popular after the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine. The track reached number 8 on the Ukrainian Apple Music chart in March 2022. Regular use of the phrase, without additional translations, introduced it abroad.
The Russian warship Moskva, the flagship of the Russian Navy's Black Sea Fleet, was sunk by Ukrainian forces on 14 April 2022 during the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Ukrainian officials announced that their forces had hit and damaged it with two R-360 Neptune anti-ship missiles, and that the ship had then caught fire. The United States Department of Defense later confirmed this, and Russia reported that the ship had sunk in stormy seas after the fire reached munitions onboard and they exploded.
The Central Post Office in Kyiv, Ukraine, is located in Maidan Nezalezhnosti. It houses Ukrposhta, Ukraine's national postal service, and includes offices and a 24-hour internet café on the upper floors. The building was completed in 1958, and underwent a renovation during the 1990s.
The Izmail Border Detachment "Colonel Oleksandr Zhukovsky" (MUN 1474) is a brigade level detachment of the Eastern Department of the State Border Service of Ukraine. The detachment guards the Moldova-Ukraine border and Romania-Ukraine border in two Raions as well as three seaports and Izmail International Airport. It guards 442.4km border with Moldova including 3 km along lake and 132.8km along land and 306.6km border with Romania, 181.1km along the Danube River and 125.5 km maritime border.
Texas has "Remember the Alamo!" Ukraine now has "Russian warship, go f—k yourself!" — or "Go f—k yourself!" for short. Those were the final words a group of thirteen Ukrainian border guards relayed to a Russian battleship that had ordered them to surrender. The guards were stationed on Zmiinyi Island (Snake Island), a strategically important rock in the Black Sea.
The Moskva gained notoriety early in the war when the crew demanded the surrender of Ukrainian forces on Snake Island, prompting a riposte from border guards on the island: 'Fuck you, Russian warship.'
{{cite book}}
: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)On March 1, on the 30th anniversary of the modern Ukrainian stamp, Ukrposhta announced an All-Ukrainian popular competition for the development of the sketch of the postage stamp "Russian warship, fuck you!
The Ukrainian Postal Service, or Ukrposhta, said it was celebrating its 30-plus years by replacing its "All-Ukrainian People's Contest" with the best sketch of a postal stamp called "Russian military ship, go on."