MAY 11, 1976 — JUNE 13, 2023
47 YEARS, PHOTOGRAPHER
"A long-haired dude who enjoys wandering around and photographing festivals and large events"—this is how Roman described himself in an interview. Friends noted that Roman embodied the values of a classical liberal while also embracing nationalist ideas. Born and raised in Uman, Cherkasy region, he ran his own farm.
At the onset of the full-scale invasion, Roman volunteered for the front lines, joining the "Svoboda" battalion in the Fast Response Brigade of the National Guard “Frontier”. Roman was a sniper with the call sign "Corsair."
"The first thing that struck me when I arrived was the smell. I once thought hell would smell like sulfur. In reality, it smells of fire: burnt belongings, buildings, furniture, people’s homes—everything they had spent years collecting, all destroyed in an instant. That’s what hell smelled like," Corsair recalled.
Roman dedicated his life to Ukraine: he was a long-time activist, a defender of the Ukrainian language, a participant in the Language Protests and the Revolution of Dignity, and a committed member of the "Svoboda" political movement.
In civilian life, he was a photojournalist, working for the newspaper Nasha Vira. His images were featured in major Ukrainian outlets, and his famous photographs from the Maidan protests were even published abroad.
Roman became one of Ukraine’s top reportage photographers, capturing thousands of political events. His camera documented the brutal violence on Kyiv’s Instytutska Street in 2014 when "Berkut" forces opened fire on protesters.
Roman fought in some of the fiercest battles in eastern Ukraine, including in Severodonetsk and Zaitseve. He fell in combat near Bakhmut.
