Petro, 40, says he and his older brother, Dmytro, 43, have been “making little models of soldiers together since childhood, and conducting fake wars. Then we grew up and had a different kind of war.” Dmytro says that “in the war, we were always together”. They were together when the drone detonated under their car, killing the other two soldiers with them. The brothers are now recuperating from their injuries in the same hospital, in different wards. I talk to them separately, but each brother tells me mostly about the other.
Petro says that when the drone detonated, “I felt a very strong burning sensation and I was screaming. My brother was screaming that he was injured too and I was so happy that he was screaming because it meant he was alive.” Dmytro says: “I heard my brother’s voice and I calmed down. It probably all happened very quickly, but it felt like time stopped. When I realised that Petro was seriously injured in all four limbs – how much blood he was losing – I knew that I had to provide medical aid for him or he would die. I’ve been on the frontline for a long time. I’ve tied a lot of tourniquets. So in this situation I’m not panicking. I’m calm. I tied the tourniquets. But I was worried about him.” Petro says Dmytro worries too much, “but it’s natural, I’m his little brother.” Dmytro says: “I’ve been protective of Petro since picking him up from kindergarten. He’s not weak, he’s very strong. But I have to look after him. He’s my little brother.”
They are now healing well, although Dmytro says he’s worried about Petro’s hands. His doctors say he’ll never regain full movement. Dmytro says his brother has “golden hands: whatever he likes to do with them, he does so well. He’s very creative: a sculptor, he plays the guitar.” Petro says it was Dmytro’s guitar – his brother bought it but got bored after learning one song and quit, so Petro learned to play instead.
Petro hopes the war has left him with enough movement in his hands to go back to making sculptures, and there’s one sitting on his bedside table in the hospital. It’s a phone stand with the insignia of his village’s brigade, which he insists on giving to me. I’m concerned that without it Petro won’t be able to hold his phone, as one hand is swathed in bandages and the other sutured to his midriff. When I ask the doctors about this they explain: “To encourage the skin grafts on his hands to take, we connect the hand to the midriff where the blood supply is better.” They say Petro spends a lot of his time on his phone, mostly video calling Dmytro in the hospital ward downstairs.