On February 24, 2022, during the Russian attack on Ukraine, a brigade of brave Ukrainian military soldiers positioned on Snake Island was attacked by a Russian battleship. At the demand of the Russian skipper of the cruiser “Moscow(Moskva)” to give up and surrender, Roman Gribov, gave an expressive reaction in Russian, wherein the revile was joined with a firm aim to stay faithful to the Motherland. The expression “Russian warship, go fuck yourself!” immediately turned out to be commonly known and caused a huge public reaction. Regardless of the verbal type of articulation, it was applauded as a brilliant reaction to Russia’s unjustifiable threats.
Ukrposhta(the Ukrainian post office) announced a grand competition for the new design, the new postage stamp, for the name of which the mentioned phrase was chosen. Around 520 artists submitted their drawings to the competition effort. Boris Grokh’s model won, with over 1,750 votes cast and a total of about 8,000. On its basis, two versions of the postage stamp were created: “Russian warship, go…! Glory to Ukraine!” and «Russian warship, go…! Glory to heroes!” . Both stamps are accepted for payment in all post offices of Ukraine.
Both stamps were issued on April 12, 2022. The solemn presentation was held simultaneously in many of the cities of Ukraine. Roman Hrybov and famous Ukrainian writer Serhiy Zhadan were present at the presentation ceremony in Kharkiv. Redemption with stamps of the Autonomous Republic of Crimea, Sevastopol and Kherson, which were in the occupation zones at the time of issue, took place in Kyiv.
On April 12, 2022, the stamp went on sale in the Ukrposhta online shop and the main post offices in all of Ukraine, except for the Crimea, Donetsk, Luhansk and Kherson regions, where the sale was impossible due to occupation or significant hostilities. For these regions, a certain share of the circulation was reserved for sale after the war.
The next day after its release, the cruiser “Moscow” was destroyed by a missile strike by the Ukrainian Navy, (watch our short video which caused increased interest in the brand. During the week over, 700,000 copies were sold, and on April 20, Ukrposhta CEO Ihor Smilyansky announced the completion of branch sales, and the remaining 100,000 copies would be sold through an online store. On April 22, a set of stamps in an autographed envelope by Roman Hrybov was sold at a charity auction of Ukrposhta for UAH 5 million. The company donated the money to the needs of the Ukrainian army .
Video of brave soldiers of snake island.
