Mayor Jason Hamling on Thursday afternoon hoisted the Ukrainian flag up outside the Orange Civic Centre on the pole normally occupied by Orange City Council's flag after aresolution at Tuesday night's ordinary council meeting.

The decision was made after a mayoral minute was put up by Cr Jason Hamling, who missed the meeting through illness, handing chair duties to Deputy Mayor Gerald Power.

Cr Jeff Whitton said it was no small thing to fly another nation's flag but encouraged the council to support the motion.

"I think it's a great show of solidarity on behalf of the city and the community," he said.

Mr Whitton said his mother-in-law was born in Ukraine before becoming Australian.

"She was taken by the Nazis in WW2 and taken to Berlin," he said.

"Basically her family was used as slaves and put to work in the market gardens of the concentration camps. We don't want to see Europe go back to those days.

"Flying another nation's flag in support and solidarity is a very large step and a thing that we should be doing."

Cr Kevin Duffy did seek to amend the motion, suggesting the Ukrainian emblem or flag be stencilled on the grass hill above the museum, similar to the recent NAIDOC symbol, instead of removing the Orange City Council flag in favour of the Ukrainian one.

The prohibitive cost led to the amendment's defeat.

Cr Peterson asked if there had been a precedent set and wondered if flying the Ukrainian flag would set one.

"I think it's an issue of great importance," he said in supporting the motion. "I'm thinking in the future there may be other political things we don't want to get involved with. Has this happened before or is this a once in a generation event?"

CEO David Waddell said he believed this was a unique situation.

The impact on Council choosing to fly the Ukrainian flag on Orange's Russian community was raised by Cr Frances Kinghorne.

"I'm just curious about being mindful of people of Russian extraction that live here. We have to be careful not to marginalise them. A lot of them are quite horrified by what's going on too so if we do something like this it needs to be done with some sort of statement acknowledging that," Cr Kinghorne said.

"We don't want them being treated differently because they have a Russian background."

Cr Power said it takes two to make a war.

"But this is the aspect of where we are," he said.

"I think it's good to support the Ukrainian people, I get what's happening but my point is there are Russian people living in Orange who don't support what's happening from their own people back there as well, and I just want to make sure we don't do anything that makes it more difficult for them," Cr Kinghorne said.

"I think some of them are struggling a bit already."

The Ukrainian flag is represented by two coloured bands, one blue and one yellow with the blue representing the country's blue skies while the yellow represents its wheat fields.

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