@Ukraine Twitter account goes on full offense as Russia invades Ukraine

Donate to Ukraine’s army. Tell Russia what you think about its invasion of Ukraine. Get Russia’s verified account kicked off Twitter.

These are some of the online messages in response to the crisis in Ukraine, being sent from a verified Twitter handle that says it is the official account of the embattled country.

After several days of near radio-silence from the account, the handle @Ukraine began posting in earnest Thursday as Russia invaded the neighboring nation.

The spree of tweets began with a cartoon depicting a towering Adolf Hitler patting a childlike Vladimir Putin approvingly on the cheek. The account later tweeted, “This is not a ‘meme’, but our and your reality right now.�

The image has gone viral, with more than 1 million likes and nearly 250,000 retweets.

The messages — and their dark humor — aren’t exactly new. The @Ukraine account has been in existence since at least 2017 and has been in a Twitter battle with @Russia for just as long.

On Thursday, tweets included “Tag @Russia and tell them what you think about them� and “hey people, let’s demand @Twitter to remove @Russia from here.�

Meanwhile, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky declared martial law and encouraged his compatriots to take up arms. The U.S. and the West announced new sanctions on Russia for an invasion that they had warned for weeks was coming but that Moscow had denied was planned.

President Biden has directed 7,000 additional service members to be deployed to Europe. Biden called the Russian invasion a war “without provocation, without justification, without necessity.�

Ukrainian Health Minister Viktor Lyashko announced Thursday night that 57 citizens have been killed amid the Russian invasion, with 169 others wounded.