Ukraine’s stamps bring humor, patriotism and swearing to the mail

Rude gestures are rare on stamps, but Ukraine’s most famous stamp features one. It shows a soldier giving the middle finger to a Russian warship, a reference to a standoff on Snake Island on the first day of the full-scale invasion nearly three years ago.

The Russians demanded surrender, but the Ukrainians refused using unprintable language.

The warship in question, the cruiser Moskva, was sunk by the Ukrainians two days after the stamp was issued and sold out within a week of going on sale.

The significance of the stamp is so great that all that was left was handed over to government delegations Representing Ukraine on the world stage.

Ihor Smilyansky, the head of the Ukrainian postal company Ukrposhta, admits that it was a risky move.

“It was my decision. I said, I don’t care what everyone else thinks. I just believe it’s the right thing to do,” he told the BBC. “I know that it is against all philatelic rules (stamp study) and all rules. But we’re all about breaking the rules.”

Ukrposhta often tests its designs in public, and the results of such online polls are also usually very political.

This is how Ukraine’s best-selling stamp was created, which shows a Ukrainian tractor pulling a captured Russian tank and the popular war greeting: “Good evening, we come from Ukraine.”

Ukrposhta has sold about eight million such stamps.

Postage stamps with Ukraine famous mine detection dog Patron Ukrposhta earned about $500,000 (£400,000): 80% of the money was spent on demining equipment and the rest on animal shelters.

Another stamp from a Mural by the famous graffiti artist Banksy We helped finance 10 bomb shelters on a building destroyed by shelling outside Kiev. This stamp features another popular but unprintable Ukrainian slogan – this time against Vladimir Putin.

Ihor Smilyansky says Ukrposhta stamps have a dose of humor added to keep Ukrainian morale up during the war with Russia.

“Humor has become a fighting force for Ukrainians in this war,” he told the BBC. “Even in the most difficult circumstances you have to take it with humor. And that’s what our stamps are sometimes about.”

Oscar Young of UK-based stamp dealer and auctioneer Stanley Gibbons says Ukraine’s war-focused approach to stamps is highly unusual.

“Generally stamps are artistic and polite, but going out of your way and being quite rude, using swear words and being very gestural on stamps – that’s quite unique to these particular issues,” he tells the BBC.

He says the candid image used on the Warship stamp is what made the stamp so famous and created a huge stir when it was issued.

The distinctive character of Ukrainian stamps has earned them great popularity among collectors around the world.

Laura Bullivant from Gloucester in the UK thinks other stamps look boring in comparison.

“I think they’re similar to the Ukrainian thought process, they’re just strong and they just don’t bow to whatever comes to their country,” she says.

“At a time of great concern and fear, they are bringing something to the table that no other country could.”