A 25-year-old Ukrainian artist has made a mural depicting a Ukrainian girl on a wall near Maribor City Hall in what he says is a token of gratitude to Slovenians and Slovenia for their aid to Ukraine.

According to the artist, Konstantin Kochanovsky, the young woman in his mural represents "young Ukraine".

Wearing a traditional embroidered costume and a wreath of flowers on her head, the woman holds a bouquet of poppy flowers in the shape of Ukraine in her hands.

The poppy flowers symbolise war victims, Kochanovsky said in an online video address.

A mural by Ukrainian artist Konstantin Kochanovsky on a wall near Maribor City Hall. Photo: Andreja Seršen Dobaj/STA

The artist, who as been creating murals for more than five years, painted his latest one on the wall of a building by the parking lot adjacent to Maribor City Hall.

The Maribor city said the initiative for the mural came from the Ukrainian Embassy and the Slovenian-Ukrainian cultural association Razom. Their idea was to express gratitude to the city and its residents.

"We embraced it as Maribor and Ukraine's Kharkiv are twinned cities, and the mural is an opportunity for further cooperation and friendship with other twinned cities as well," the municipality has told the newspaper Večer.

The plan is to have murals from other twin cities join the Ukrainian one on the wall in the future.