'Not a meme': Ukraine's Hitler-Putin image amid military operation by Russia

Russia-Ukraine crisis: "This is not a ‘meme’, but our and your reality right now," Ukraine's official Twitter handle captioned the illustration.

As Russia declared a military operation on Ukraine on Thursday, the latter  shared a cartoon from its official Twitter account illustrating Adolf Hitler smiling down on Russia President Vladimir Putin.

With it, Ukraine tweeted, "This is not a ‘meme’, but our and your reality right now."

pic.twitter.com/IaqFbpayqz

— Ukraine / Україна (@Ukraine) February 24, 2022

The illustration received a mixed response from Twitter users. Some said it was a political cartoon, while others disapproved of it saying wasn't the "right time" to post it.

Russia invaded Ukraine by land, sea and air on February 24, in the biggest attack by one state against another in Europe since World War II. Missiles rained down on its cities and residents fled after Russian President Vladimir Putin said he would aim to demilitarise and "denazify" Ukraine.

Putin said, "I have decided to conduct a special military operation... to protect people who have been subjected to bullying and genocide... for the last eight years. And for this we will strive for the demilitarisation and denazification of Ukraine. And to bring to court those who committed numerous bloody crimes against civilians, including against citizens of the Russian Federation."

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said, "Russia treacherously attacked our state in the morning, as Nazi Germany did in the WW2 years. As of today, our countries are on different sides of world history. Russia has embarked on a path of evil, but Ukraine is defending itself & won't give up its freedom no matter what Moscow thinks."