In Mariupol, a mural appeared on a high-rise building destroyed as a result of the Russian invasion – a “girl Nastya” was depicted on the wall of the house, crying against the backdrop of “NATO bombings”. According to Russian media, it was painted by the Italian artist Ciro Cerullo, nicknamed Yorit.
“I put an image of a girl from Donetsk on the facade of a nine-story building to show the hypocrisy of the West, which for years did not deal with this civil conflict, until Russia intervened last year. The West was not interested in the children who were under bombs all this time, but when the time came to attack Russia through the media, and now by military means, they quickly mobilized under the pretext of humanism and the defense of freedom, ”RIA Novostiquoted him as saying. .
In the center of the composition is a little girl with eyes in the colors of the DPR flag, on whom NATO bombs are falling. However, a little later it turned out that the photo of the girl was stolen. This is the work of Australian photographer Helen Whittle, the girl in the photo is her daughter. This was noticed by the Italian artist Leonardo Bianchi.
“I became aware that my photo taken in 2018 was used to create a mural in Mariupol, Ukraine. The artist has not contacted me and I do not give permission to use this image. My thoughts and opinions in no way coincide with the thoughts of the artist, ”Whittle said. In a caption to her work, Whittle explained earlier in the magazine's publication that the little girl was sulking because she couldn't find any milk in the fridge.
“An irrefutable fact: from February 24, 2022 to the present day, only bombs fell on cities, certainly not “NATO”, but Russian ones,” Bianchi also wrote .
Yorit later posted on Instagram, where he denied allegations of plagiarism, stating that this was an image of another girl named "Nastya", who lived in the Donbas for 8 years, but admitted that he copied hair and clothes from someone else's photo. Jorit also accused the Italian media, which wrote about plagiarism, of working on a call “from above”.
Cherullo, who stole the photo of the "girl Nastya", is also known as the author of murals with Dostoevsky, Gagarin and Assange on the facades of houses in Russia and Italy. In addition, he is one of the heroes of the film "They need another Italy." This is a propaganda film produced by Russia Today with a standard Russian propaganda story about how Italy "became a colony of the US and NATO." In the film, its authors meet with people who are dissatisfied with the Italian authorities and their support for Ukraine.
They also complain about the EU and dream that Italy would be friends with Russia, they say that the war in Ukraine was unleashed and sponsored by the US and the EU, they say that they “fell in love with Russia and cannot betray it.” There is also footage in the film where the artist paints a mural with Julian Assange, it is made in the style of "Nastya's girl" – similarly with bloody tears / cuts on her face, but without bombardments.
Earlier, The Insider wrote that in Mariupol, a mural with a girl who lost her mother and lost her leg was replaced with a tricolor. The occupying authorities of Mariupol erased a painting depicting 6-year-old Milana Abdurashitova, whose mother died in a shelling in 2015. The mural was created in 2018 for the International Day of Peace. After the death of her mother, the girl was taken by her grandmother Olga, they went to live in Kyiv.