The tattooed hands of a commander Tom Peter
Roman is 38 and a commander of a sniper support unit. He left Ukraine years ago and settled in France. He said he had everything he ever dreamed of, but then the war started, and he signed up because he felt he couldn’t look at himself in the mirror if he was sitting this out. So he went back to his home country to fight. We were in Donbas region and spent four or five days with him and his men in various dugouts. He has a reconnaissance drone unit, a mortar unit, and active fighting personnel, and they fan out across a section of the frontline. He works out of a command room in the basement of a house in a damaged village that’s barely populated. Most locals have left. He spends most of his days and nights in front of his screens, directing his guys.
He’s a very impressive, imposing character, with tattoos all over his body, this massive ginger beard and a low gravelly voice, a charismatic person who is well respected by his peers. The tattoo on one hand says “revenge”, the one on the hand that holds the cigarette says “hate”.
One of his closest childhood friends was killed fighting the Russians, and it was a very traumatic experience for him. He got those two words tattooed on to his hands, and he says that’s what motivates him on days when he might be feeling low. Many people volunteered to fight to protect their country, but for many it’s become personal, because they have lost close friends and comrades. These tattoos symbolise the personal tragedy that every soldier like him has experienced in this war.
https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2024/dec/26/the-photographs-that-defined-2024-and-the-stories-behind-them
Roman is 38 and a commander of a sniper support unit. He left Ukraine years ago and settled in France. He said he had everything he ever dreamed of, but then the war started, and he signed up because he felt he couldn’t look at himself in the mirror if he was sitting this out. So he went back to his home country to fight. We were in Donbas region and spent four or five days with him and his men in various dugouts. He has a reconnaissance drone unit, a mortar unit, and active fighting personnel, and they fan out across a section of the frontline. He works out of a command room in the basement of a house in a damaged village that’s barely populated. Most locals have left. He spends most of his days and nights in front of his screens, directing his guys.
He’s a very impressive, imposing character, with tattoos all over his body, this massive ginger beard and a low gravelly voice, a charismatic person who is well respected by his peers. The tattoo on one hand says “revenge”, the one on the hand that holds the cigarette says “hate”.
One of his closest childhood friends was killed fighting the Russians, and it was a very traumatic experience for him. He got those two words tattooed on to his hands, and he says that’s what motivates him on days when he might be feeling low. Many people volunteered to fight to protect their country, but for many it’s become personal, because they have lost close friends and comrades. These tattoos symbolise the personal tragedy that every soldier like him has experienced in this war.
https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2024/dec/26/the-photographs-that-defined-2024-and-the-stories-behind-them