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It’s art imitating strife.
A mural of a murdered Ukrainian refugee that’s loathed by local lefties for its “tough-on-crime” message and ties to Elon Musk was vandalized in Manhattan — irking neighbors who on Friday called the defacement a “disgusting” act of political “spite.”
The sprawling painting of Iryna Zarutska, who was stabbed to death by a homeless ex-con in August, was graffitied with spray paint on the Lower East Side earlier this week, neighbors said.
“PLEASE VANDALIZE THIS,” the tagger scrawled over an image of the tragic 23-year-old’s face on Delancey and Ludlow streets.
“It’s pathetic. It’s reprehensible,” fumed David Carbone, a 76-year-old artist who lives nearby, about the vandalism.
The tribute mural had been complete for less than two weeks before it was heartlessly defaced, neighbors said.
“When we passed, they were doing it, it was beautiful. We were looking at it, it was amazing,” said Israel Torres, 62, who works in the neighborhood.
“We passed the following week, and we saw that, and we said, ‘Oh, my God, look, somebody messed it up already.’”
The painting is part of a campaign launched by conservative tech CEO Eoghan McCabe — and partially funded by Elon Musk — to honor the slain refugee with murals depicting her in several cities.
McCabe has previously said he wants the multi-million-dollar initiative, which includes a mural in the Bushwick section of Brooklyn, to highlight how crime in liberal areas can lead to tragedies like Zarutska’s ruthless murder on a train in Charlotte, North Carolina.
But a spokeswoman for McCabe on Friday confirmed the Lower East Side mural was part of the same project, but declined to comment further.
Left-leaning neighbors believe it was likely painted to inflame political tensions, like its sister art in Brooklyn.
“I do think that the motivations behind the [Bushwick] mural is pushing a right wing, you know, tough on crime narrative,” said Emmy, a teacher who lives in the neighborhood.
“They’re literally trying to use this white woman’s face who was murdered … to push a right wing tough-on-crime narrative that I don’t agree with.”
The Lower East Side mural, signed by the Montreal-based artist collective Project TYXNA, had brightened up the building that houses Le Jardin Bistro on Delancey, neighbors said.
“[The vandalism] is terrible thing to do…pure spite,” said one longtime Lower East Side resident. “That’s disgusting.”
McCabe, who runs the AI firm Intercom, donated $500,000 to the Zarutska mural campaign and collected $1 million from Musk, a spokeswoman for McCabe told The Post in January. They also raised $200,000 from smaller donors.
“I started this campaign to make sure that the story of Iryna does not disappear. Her murder is at the nexus of many issues plaguing American society. For example, one is the progressive approach to crime,” McCabe told The Post in January.
In late December, a three-story painting of Zarutska by Connecticut-based artist Ben Keller was installed on an apartment building in a trendy section of Bushwick.
Other murals depicting Zarutska were commissioned by McCabe in Washington DC, Miami and Los Angeles.
Project TYXNA didn’t return a request for comment Friday.
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