A khaki fleece jacket worn by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy sold at a fundraising auction at London’s Tate Modern gallery for 90,000 pounds ($110,000), the Telegraph reported.
Zelenskiy wore the jacket as he walked the streets of Kyiv while Russian troops were close to the capital in the early weeks of the war.
U.K. Prime Minister Boris Johnson attended Thursday’s “Brave Ukraine" event. He termed the 50,000-pound opening price for the jacket “a snip" and urged buyers to “dig deep" for it and other items on offer, which included a guided tour of Kyiv by Mayor Vitali Klitschko, a former world heavyweight boxing champion.
The Ukrainian Embassy to the United Kingdom said in a video posted on Twitter that when the war started, the world couldn't believe Ukraine and its government will last for more than three days, but it did," "Today, the whole world looks up to a man wearing a simple fleece jacket. And now the iconic item, personally signed by President Zelenskyy, is here," it added.
According to the embassy, the goal of the fundraiser, titled “Brave Ukraine", was to “tell the stories of (Ukraine’s) bravery which became iconic during the war, as well as to raise funds to support this bravery."
Meanwhile, the Russian defense ministry has said Ukrainian facilities powering the railways have been targeted by missile strikes because trains are used to deliver foreign arms to Ukrainian forces.
The rail system is being hit not just because it is critical to military supplies, Ukrainian officials said.
Moscow's "goal is to destroy critical infrastructure as much as possible for military, economic and social reasons," Deputy Infrastructure Minister Yuri Vaskov said in an interview.
With Russian warships blockading Black Sea ports, downed bridges and checkpoints obstructing roadways, and a fuel crunch snarling trucking, Ukraine’s 22,000 km (14,000 miles) of track are the main lifeline of the struggling economy and a passage to the outside world.
