-Russia is murdering Ukraine's future,
It's murdering our children, our culture, our language.
It's murdering us as a nation, absolutely purposefully.
-[breathing heavily]
-[speaking native language]
-Could there be anything more dreadful
than losing one's child?
There can be: The Russians taking his body
and not giving it back, for instance, right?
-[speaking native language]
-And something relatively beautiful --
in a different reality,
one wouldn't be able to call it beautiful --
is that Roman was able to come back
and people could come say farewell to him.
That was really unforgettable.
[crowd singing in native language]
[birds chirping]
[singing continues]
-Ukraine is losing its rock musicians, its poets,
writers, historians, teachers, coaches,
those who educate youth, develop culture,
those who build this country
and leave something behind.
[crowd chanting in native language]
-When he [Roman] was 16, Maidan was taking place,
and he was a child.
[indistinct shouting]
[explosion]
But that child was an unconditional leader in Maidan
for people much older than himself.
[explosions]
-Life really radically changed when I met Roman,
by 180 degrees.
Before that, I did not consider myself
part of an active civic society.
I immediately asked if we could
continue working together -- cooperating --
taking part in public activities.
He said, "Yes, sure."
That's how we spent a year and a half together.
-He was working on some TV content.
-Hello, Ukraine. I'm your citizen.
Today we are going to talk about justice.
-He was fighting unfair elections.
He could have made a career as a politician.
-He managed to complete so much,
and how much more he would have been able
to do for Kyiv and Ukraine if the Russians hadn't killed him.
[artillery whizzing] [explosions]
-[speaking native language]
-On February 24th, missiles started flying at Kyiv,
and the choice was obvious.
It was clear he [Roman] would go to defend Kyiv,
to take part in the battle for Kyiv.
In the evening, he came back wearing a uniform,
and for the first time in my life,
after they had left of course, I got truly hysterical.
-Surely, what a father wants at such a moment
is to save his children somehow.
-We [Roman and I] got together
and then we began to plan what to do next,
where to look for weapons,
which ranks of the Territorial Defense to join,
or who to join in order to be useful to the state.
We gave it some thought...
We knew that the 93rd Brigade
was one of the most powerful ones,
a great brigade that had its own history.
-I knew him [Roman] for two months.
Before the reconnaissance assignment where he was killed,
he had come to my blindage.
We had had some tea, he had treated me with a Snickers,
brought some cigarettes.
There's not much joy at war
so we are trying to cheer ourselves up somehow, to joke,
to cling together. I think we are doing well.
[gunshots]
-We don't know all the details, but from what we know,
he [Roman] was on reconnaissance patrol.
He was really close to the enemy. Way too close.
And they were detected.
-When a fighter's gone, a friend especially,
you get motivated.
You take risks, you don't hide.
So, even if I'm scared, I don't show it.
♪♪
-They will keep destroying us to the last Ukrainian,
just for us being Ukrainians.
So there's a pantheon of the dead behind us,
but who's going to build things here if everyone goes to war?
-It's just a tragedy.
The dream of the nation is getting destroyed.
After the war is over,
we will have to build this country all over again --
and that will probably be quite hard.
♪♪