The hunt for “war trophies” begins in Ukraine.

kyiv, Ukraine – When Ihor Sumliennyi, a young environmental activist, arrived at the site of a recent rocket attack, the rubble had just stopped smoking.

The policemen guarded the street.

People who had lived in the destroyed apartment building looked at him in disbelief, some making the sign of the cross beside him.

He started browsing.

And then bam!

His eyes lit up. Right in front of him, lying by the sidewalk, was exactly what he was looking for:

a fragment of splinters, a part of the Russian cruise missile real that had crashed into the building.

He picked it up, pricking the jagged edges of steel in the process, stuffed it into his backpack, and walked briskly for an hour to his home:

“I didn’t want the police to stop me and think I was a terrorist.”

That ugly piece of steel has now become the star of his collection of “war trophies”, which ranges from ammunition cans and a shaft used for a rocket-propelled grenade on a pair of black Russian boots he found in Bucha, a battered suburb of Kyiv.

“Those have bad energy“, She said.

It may seem eccentric, even macabre, to collect war remnants in this way.

But Sumliennyi is not alone.

Across Ukraine, many civilians and soldiers are looking for shrapnel fragments, mortar fins, cartridge cases and bomb fragments.

Ukrainian artists are weaving them into their work.

Auction houses are moving discarded weapon parts and other artifacts from the battlefield, raising thousands of dollars for Ukrainian soldiers.

A woman is also doing sculptures in the uniforms of dead Russians.

There is clearly talk of something bigger.

Many Ukrainians want to be on the front lines or feel connected to the cause in some way, even if they are far from battle or seem ready for combat.

With patriotism at the peak and the existence of their country at stake, they are looking something tangible that you can hold in your hands and that represents this huge and overwhelming moment.

They want theirs little piece of history

“Each piece has a story,” said Serhii Petrov, a well-known artist working in Lviv, western Ukraine.

He is now incorporating spent bullet cases into the masks he makes.

Leading one, he reflected:

“Maybe it was someone’s last bullet.”

At a charity auction in Lviv on Sunday, Valentyn Lapotkov, a computer programmer, paid more than $ 500 for an empty missile tube that had been used, the auctioneers said, to blow up a Russian battleship.

He said when he touched it he felt “close to our heroes“.

Commemorating the war, even when it is probably far from over, is a way to show solidarity with soldiers and those who have suffered.

One of the largest museums in Kiev recently hosted an exhibition of war artifacts collected since the Russians invaded last February.

The rooms are littered with gas masks, missile tubes and charred debris.

The message is clear: look, this is what real war looks like.

On a personal level, Sumliennyi, 31, is doing something similar.

He is a training auditor, but at heart a climate justice activist.

From Kiev, he works with the Fridays for Future movement of Greta Thunberghe runs social media campaigns against fossil fuels and, during the hundreds of video calls he makes, shows off his war trophies.

He also sends some activists out of the country to “go on tour” (unable to travel due to Ukraine’s ban on military-age men from leaving the country).

“It’s very interesting,” explained Sumliennyi, who is tall and thin and lives in a small apartment with his mother.

“You don’t hear the war on television or the news. But if you show people these pieces, they feel it. “

This is exactly what a young Polish woman said after Sumliennyi peeped out during a video call and returned with her trophies.

“It was amazing,” said the woman, Dominika Lasota, a climate justice activist from Warsaw.

“I automatically started laughing at that, shocked, but then I realized what dystopian what was this moment “.

“Ihor seemed to be very calm about it,” added di Sumliennyi.

“In fact, he proudly showed that part of the bomb, he was smiling.”

It is a mechanism of copeHe explained.

“Without black humor, we can’t live in war,” he said.

“It’s a reaction of p protectionfor the organism “.

However, he and his friends handle war artifacts with care, almost as solemnly as soldiers would wave a flag for a fallen comrade.

“When I touch this,” he said of the part of the missile he recovered in April, “I feel bad energy on my fingers “.

He said he spoke to weapons experts and determined that the 5-pound piece was part of the tail of a Russian cruise missile Calibr.

In Lviv, Tetiana Okhten helps run the UAID foundation, a network of volunteers who, among many things it is doing, has sold more than 15 pieces of war debris, including several missiles and missile tubes used by the Ukrainian army that are greatest hits .

Overall, the war debris they generated more than $ 4,000, which the foundation spends on protective vests, medicines and other supplies for Ukrainian troops.

“We are taking things that used to kill people now save lives “She said.

He said a young Ukrainian soldier fighting in the Donbas region was of great help in finding things from the front line.

He jumped out of the trenches even as Russian bullets exploded around him and his comrades yelled at him to take cover.

But, he said, he stands next to a group of volunteers and yells at them:

“I have to go. My friends need these things!”

In frontline areas, some shocked residents were shocked to learn that the debris of war was turning collectibles.

“It’s crazy,” said Vova Hurzhyi, who lives in a Donbas village that the Russians continue to attack.

“This thing comes here to kill you.”

However, Sumliennyi continues to hunt.

A few weeks ago, he and some environmental friends traveled to Bucha, where Russian troops massacred hundreds of civilians, to take photos for a social media campaign on the link between fossil fuels and pollution. Russian war machine.

By chance, they stumbled upon a courtyard where they found a Russian military jacket and a pair of black boots (size 10).

They remain among your precious objects.

“We didn’t go to Bucha looking for this,” he said.

“We just got lucky.”

Diego Ibarra Sánchez contributed reports from Lviv, Ukraine, and Oleksandra Mykolyshyn from kyiv.

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