Ukraine

This article is about the country and the communities relating to it on r/place. For the 2022 flag, see Flag of Ukraine (2022). For the 2017 flag, see Flag of Ukraine (2017).

Ukraine
Name	PlaceUkraine
Description	A community centred around maintaining a flag of Ukraine, and art on it.
Subreddit	placeukraine
Artwork	Flag of Ukraine (2022), FUCK PUTIN!, Tractors Towing Tanks, Vyshyvka Pattern, Wheat Pattern, Come Back Alive, Slava Ukraini!, Heroyam Slava!, Tryzub, Crimean Tatar Symbol, Saint Sophia Cathedral, Kozak, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, Ghost of Kyiv, Bayraktar TB2, S.T.A.L.K.E.R.

Ukraine is a country in Eastern Europe, originally founded as a part of the Kievan Rus', in 879. With a total land area of 603,628 square kilometres (233,062 square miles), Ukraine is the second-largest country in Europe. Its capital and largest city is Kyiv, and its two next-largest cities are Kharkiv and Odesa.

While a Ukrainian flag was created on the canvas mostly without its input, r/placeukraine was the primary community responsible for the flag and Ukraine-related artwork on the r/place 2022 canvas. A smaller Ukrainian flag was also present on the r/place 2017 canvas.

r/place 2022

History

Day 1 - Chaotic Establishment

In the beginning, the flag was created by "The Hive Mind" - and had no way to coordinate and control its expansion. This caused the flag to quickly span the entire Canvas on Day 1, destroying the start of some artwork.

This prompted the community of r/PlaceUkraine to establish leadership, and organization, and attempt to gain control over the situation. Once a discord was created, and a link to it was posted on the subreddit, the moderators of R/PlaceUkraine were able to establish control over the canvas.

Day 2 - Cleanup & Organization

The Ukraine Mural was quickly filled with text saying "Fuck Putin!" - the origin of this is unknown, as moderators of R/PlaceUkraine continued to try and unite it's community to remove the text.

Eventually, a field of Sunflowers were proposed as a method of removal. Upon creating sunflowers, the "Hive Mind" caught on, and began to replace "Fuck Putin" with a field of sunflowers.

Terms

The Hive Mind

An uncountable number of people who participated in r/place 2022 wanted to help maintain the Ukrainian Mural. As these individuals were not part of r/PlaceUkraine's Subreddit or the community's Discord, they were out of the loop on planned projects, and would often prevent the progress of new artwork by accident.

The r/PlaceUkraine community quickly referred to these individuals as part of "The Hive Mind". During r/place 2022, they were seen as both an obstacle and a blessing. It took great effort to show when new artwork was trying to be added, slowing the progress of artwork overall. But as soon as the artwork was done, The Hive Mind protected it.

This caused false accusations of Bot Use from many groups, but only two groups of bots were approved by r/PlaceUkraine Moderators towards the end of the project.

Final Artwork

Heroyam Slava!

Ukrainian Trident (Tryzub)

The Ukrainian coat of arms - the trident, or tryzub - has a long and rich history (at least a thousand years), but it is also a symbol of a modern country. It's simple, but it's also meaningful. It is a stripe of Ukrainian warriors preserving Ukraine's sovereignty and territorial integrity now, and it reflects heroic events in the past.

Greif

Fuck Putin!

Placed on the flag by random members of the internet. R/PlaceUkraine fought to have it removed, as citizens of Ukraine did not want Putin's name to appear on their flag, even in this form.

Bayraktar TB2

The text "Bayraktar" was forced upon the Ukrainian flag by a Turkish Streamer and their community.

Due to the controversy behind the Bayraktar Drones, having been specifically Sold to Ukraine and not given, members of R/PlaceUkraine wanted it to be removed so that more mural art could be added in it's place.

Community Leaders of R/PlaceUkraine met with the streamer, and agreed to replace the text with a artistic depiction of the Bayraktar drone, with the streamer agreeing to then remove the text from the flag.

Upon completion of the sprite art, the text was not removed. This caused an uproar between the communities, as the Turkish Streamer claimed that moderators of R/PlaceUkraine did not represent Ukraine. As such, the text was removed in the final form of "The Final Clean" done by the Reddit Community.

Alliances

On Mural

• Attack on Titan
• Made in Abyss
• Dota 2
• Navi eSports
• Minecraft Bee
• The Beatles (Yellow Submarine)

Friendly Country Communities

• France
• Norway
• Denmark
• United States
• Texas
• Poland
• Cambodia
• Turkey

Friendly Communities

• Inscryption
• Anti-Streamer coalition

Bot Use

Zelensky Anti-Grief

After the community created artwork depicting Ukrainian President Volodomir Zelensky, many supporters of Russian's invasion of Ukraine on 2022 attempted to attack and deface the artwork of Zelensky.

With a massive group effort, members of r/PlaceUkraine worked together to add sunglasses to the president, while a number of bots were developed to help protect the art.

Cambodian Heart of Solidarity

After r/PlaceUkraine Moderators were informed that the Cambodian Heart was the final representation of the Cambodian community on all of r/place 2022, moderators worked to ensure the safety of this heart with a small number of bots.

Unconfirmed Bot Use

Many individuals claim the r/PlaceUkraine used bots to create their art, however when asked, Moderators are only aware of two bots being approved solely for protection.

Upon inspection of time-lapses, All artwork on r/PlaceUkraine's Mural has been confirmed to have erratic and non-uniform patterns of creation, lined up with coordination messages from Moderators within their discord.

Mentions in Media

r/PlaceUkraine was covered by several media outlets; Mashable Forbes

r/place 2017