Raccoon of Kherson

[4] A few days later, Zubkov stated in an interview that the animals from the Kherson Zoo were taken to Russian-occupied Crimea and placed in the Taigan safari park.

In turn, a screenshot of her original post went viral on the social networking site Twitter, leading to numerous memes and jokes about the raccoon being created.

[5] The Ukrainian branch of BBC News reported that the raccoon had become a symbol of war and "the absurdity of the Russian military", which is perceived to steal everything from washing machines to toilets to animals.

[11] Serhii Bratchuk, spokesman for the Ukrainian military administration of the Odesa Oblast, sarcastically offered to exchange the raccoon for ten Russian prisoners of war.

[3] A petition was created on the website of the Office of the President of Ukraine proposing to exchange the raccoon for the Odesa monument of Catherine the Great, receiving more than 6,500 signatures by 22 November 2022.

[1] The piece also referred to the raccoon in positive terms equating it to Russian soldiers and said that a name for it, Kherson" was chosen in an online poll.

An example of a meme about the raccoon. In the meme, Russian president Vladimir Putin asks his general Sergey Surovikin to report on military successes. Surovikin responds by saying "a raccoon was stolen in the Kherson direction", leading to him being congratulated by Putin with a handshake. [ 3 ]