Liverpool has maintained strong relations with a Ukrainian Black Sea port since the 1950s.
Odessa, a city to the south of Ukraine, has been twinned with Liverpool since 1957 when it was still part of the Soviet Union.
Liverpool officials maintained an active policy of twinning with other cities following WW2 where official links were forged with the Black Sea port.
READ MORE: Russia Ukraine war LIVE updates as rockets strike Kyiv and more than 100 dead
Twinning was encouraged in the years following WW2 to ensure the horrors of war would never be repeated again in Europe.
But over 60 years later President Vladimir Putin ordered Russian forces to invade Ukraine in what NATO has called a "brutal act of war".
Horrific rocket strikes have struck cities including Odessa and capital Kyiv - and 137 Ukrainian citizens and military have been killed.
Thousands of Russian civilians have protested against the war with 1,700 arrests being made in key Russian cities.
President Putin sees Ukraine as historically part of Russia - and in 2014 Russia invaded Crimea in the south of Ukraine, and continues to occupy it.
NATO is currently providing weapons, supplies and field hospitals to Ukraine - and has called the invasion "a flagrant violation of international law".
Odessa and Liverpool were first twinned in 1957 to encourage a mutual understanding in the years following WW2.
A spokesperson from Liverpool Town Hall previously told the ECHO : "The aim of twinning with another City is to foster friendship and mutual understanding.
"Linking cities culturally, either via their shared cultural links through music, art, and architecture, or by a shared or similar history.
"The twinning of towns and cities were developed across Europe following World War II."
Towns and cities were generally twinned if they had something in common such as their geographical setting or industry - with Liverpool and Odessa being linked as they were both ports.
Odessa was part of the Soviet Union at the time and both governments believed the twinning would help develop trust during the Cold War.
The spokesperson from the Town Hall added: "[They] have a shared socio-economic influence which have been brought to the cities from other countries via the seaborne trade, both past and present.
"Odessa became a twin of Liverpool as both governments believed that twinning helped play an important role in the breaking down of barriers and helped develop mutual trust.
"To this end local authorities are encouraged through the local government international bureaus to develop twinning links with their east European counterparts, particularly where fully democratic local government is being established.
"Culturally, one time, on a visit to the Ukraine, Gerry Marsden played an impromptu concert on the Potemkin stairs in Odessa in 1995 after he flew out to the Ukraine to help with an aid convey for Chernobyl victims."
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