AP PHOTOS: War-themed murals in Kyiv honor Ukraine's fallen soldiers

Set against the blue and yellow of Ukraine’s flag, the vast image of a masked fighter holding a grey-and-white cat towers over a street on the side of an apartment block in Kyiv. The painting depicts volunteer Oleksiy Movchan, a 49-year-old who was killed by Russian shelling in May 2022 in the eastern Donetsk region shortly after he and three of his fellow soldiers rescued 11 civilians and the cat. The image reproduced from a photo taken moments before Movchan died is one of two dozen war-themed murals capturing fallen soldiers, legendary figures and key moments in the grueling conflict that have appeared on the city’s walls since Russia’s full-scale invasion began two years ago. In one mural, a fighter pilot making a thumbs-up sign fills a wall in a Kyiv neighborhood. It's a reference to a famous photo that circulated in the early months of the war, purportedly showing the “Ghost of Kyiv” — a mythical pilot who was celebrated for shooting down multiple Russian planes over the...