This is part of a series of interviews that I conducted as part of The Chevrons Project. Richard Woodruff started the organisation Front Line Kit.
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Vic: Thank you for doing this. First up, can you give me a brief intro into who you are and what you’re doing in Ukraine?
Richard: My name is Richard Woodruff. I’m the founder of Front Line Kit and a foreign volunteer here in Ukraine, doing everything possible to help the armed forces with whatever they need.
Vic: How long have you been in Ukraine for?
Richard: 977 days to be precise, I think- yes, 977 days, since the 20th June 2022.
Vic: Nice! And in your volunteer work here you have both given and received chevrons?
Richard: Yes
Vic: I assume you started receiving them before you started giving them, so could you tell me about some interesting chevrons that you have received, and what it meant to you to receive them?
Richard: Interesting ones are ones where the guys along the frontline give them to me. They’re the ones in active combat, and when they take them off of the uniforms that they’re currently fighting in, it has a lot of meaning behind it for many reasons: One you don’t know if the guy is going to come back that gave you that chevron, and two that they are a literal hero and that they’re giving a possession of theirs to you.
The one I love the most is from when we were down in Kherson, when the Russians blew up the Nova Kakhovka Dam. We were out rescuing dogs and cats, and we met the rescue services. They gave me one of their patches when we were dropping off a load of food for some people that were stuck on an island. That’s one of my favourite patches, just so, so cool. Of course, now we have our own patch, which we give to all of the guys that fly our drones and also the people that volunteer with us in building drones.
Vic: So why do you give people chevrons?
Richard: It’s a nice thing, I guess. It all of course started with the military, so that you knew which brigade the guys are from- it’s an identifier. And we have our patch to associate our really high-quality drones with a brand. When people see our chevrons, see our logo, because our logo and chevron are the same. When they see it they understand that “okay this drone we are receiving, it will work and it will fly, it will delete the enemy, and it’s not something out of China or other factory in Ukraine”. They know who it’s built by, and we put a lot of love into every drone. We put a lot of love into our chevron as well, it’s made by the wonderful Tony.
Vic: Do people tend to wear the chevrons that you give them, or do they go into collections?
Richard: Yes! So every time that I give a chevron, I say “you can have this chevron but you can’t put it in a drawer. It has to be on a bag or shown somewhere” because there’s no point in taking a chevron if you’re going to put it in a drawer. In my personal opinion they have a lot of meaning. We proudly display on the wall here the ones that soldiers have given us, and it’s important- I mean the whole point of them is that they’re seen and not shoved away, especially when they have meaning. Which, in my opinion, the majority of chevrons do.
Vic: How does it make you feel when you receive a chevron from someone?
Richard: I love it. I really do. I think that soldiers are a bit over it now, they’re like “Oh thank you very much” but when you give it to someone that’s not military, they’re like “wow! a chevron! that’s so cool! I haven’t had one of these before!” or they’ve seen our logo before and seen our chevron and wanted one, so when you give it to them, they’re over the moon which is really, really sweet. We do it rarely because they really are reserved for the people that have volunteered with us and the soldiers that are fighting with our drones. So, it means a lot to get a FLK chevron.
Vic: So, do people have to work to get one?
Richard: Yes, and it’s the same thing with our t-shirts. If you’re here building drones then you can have a t-shirt because you’ve put in so much labour to volunteer your time and help the military, therefore you deserve one of the team t-shirts, to say “I am a not drone builder”[1].
Vic: A not drone builder?
Richard: A not drone builder, yeah.
Vic: Would you say that the main purpose of handing out the chevrons is to acknowledge peoples hard work?
Richard: To acknowledge peoples hard work… that’s one of the reasons. I think it’s more about an understanding that everyone’s doing their part. If you have a chevron or receive one or are giving one then your chevron probably symbolises something- such as that you are a soldier defending this country or you are an organisation that is doing enough that you’ve come up with a chevron, something that’s meaningful. Of course, there are probably people out there that have invented chevrons and their organisation or their NGO hasn’t actually done anything, in those very rare cases of a few foreigners.
Vic: How do you feel about having your own chevron that represents your group?
Richard: I love it, and I think that Tony’s done such an unbelievable job. When you see our chevron on a wall with 100 other military brigades you can instantly pick ours out which is really cool- because you very rarely have blue on a chevron but then you also have this striking yellow and white explosion coming from the background which does really make it stand out on a wall, and looks even better on a flag.
Vic: It’s a very cool chevron. So, you’ve got a few chevrons out to show me, ones that you’ve received here?
Richard: Yeah. So, here we have the one from Achillies which is a very modern styled one.
They’re one of the best drone groups in Ukraine and the reason why that chevron means so much to me is because everything that we’ve done, every success, is actually down to Achillies. We may make really good drones, but they are the ones that are putting them to use, and making our drones as amazing as they are. So that chevron means so much because FLK and Achillies are tied hand in hand together, and everything is developed with them.
The next patch is a sunny little cloud that has the text above it that says “we’re all going to die”. That was actually from a member of the International Legion.
The cloud is smiling and it’s got a rainbow shooting out of its arse, and it’s very, very funny and is kind of the morbid humour of the military. Humour’s a very, very big part of the Ukrainian armed forces and I think that you need humour in a time of war to keep going and not get too depressed.
And the final one is quite controversial, it’s a guy doing a matrix lean back when the bullets are flying towards you, and it has the text above of “Ухилянт” and Ухилянт is someone that is a draft-dodger.
Trying to get away from conscription. So, he’s dodging under the text of Ухилянт, and I think one of the soldiers brought one of those in one day and was having a laugh at the badge.
Vic: How do you feel about patches for the sake of humour? Like ones you might buy in a souvenir store.
Richard: We’ve got lots of them here, we’ve got “tanka schön” which doesn’t have any real meaning, we’ve got a “verboten in Deutschland“ badge, all of the funny ones are in German of course. We’ve got people making their own too. I think as long as it’s given in humour and not in a serious way then there’s nothing wrong with it. I say make as many as you like. As long as it’s done in the right way, it’s clear you’re making it for humour and not in some disrespectful way. Saying that there’s a lot of ones the military guys wear, like ЗСУhub[2] one, which I always cringe at- but I’ve seen so many videos of guys on the front with that one, and many others which are close to some kind of adult website.
Vic: How do you feel when you see a person that’s got a bag that’s covered in chevrons?
Richard: It depends! You can normally tell what those chevrons are. If I see someone with a 93rd brigade one I’m instantly happy because those are the guys that I’ve been with since the very beginning- and you can tell if a bag is full of ones that they’ve just bought from the shop. I think that maybe 6 is my limit, like that’s a decent amount. Any more it’s like why do you have so many chevrons? I mean having a wall of them yeah, but I don’t know about carrying so many, or having a chevron jacket, because then it looks like you’re using them for something. I don’t know really.
Vic: I’ve seen that there’s been charity auctions for things like captured Russian chevrons, how do you see that? Is it purely for the sake of any trophy, or is there special significance because it’s a chevron?
Richard: It’s an interesting one. I don’t think I’d ever buy one or auction for one. I think it’s disgusting even touching a Russian chevron, but I completely understand the fascination for having one. One time a Ukrainian soldier gave me some like “yeah this is off some dead Russians that I killed this week“ and you can see that it’s a point of pride like “yeah I’m fighting on the front and this came from having to have a real fight with the enemy“ so it means something, it’s something of significance- but yeah you don’t want to touch one with your hands because a Russian touched it previously.
Vic: Would you say there’s extra significance to gifting chevrons now because of the war?
Richard: Yeah, I guess I couldn’t really see the point in a chevron if it wasn’t war related in some sense. But maybe that’s because all day every day we’re surrounded by the war here. It’s weird to think that there are chevrons that aren’t related to the war, but I don’t know, maybe they exist, and you can tell me about them!
Vic: Like nationality patches.
Richard: Ahh okay, I see. I had the British one, the British/Ukrainian one, when I was first over here. I think that that should actually be one of them if you’re going to have 6 on your bag. Have one as the flag so you can show your support for whichever country and whichever country you’re also coming from.
Vic: Did you end up getting the blood type one that I see a lot of tourists with?
Richard: No, I didn’t. Can’t even remember my blood type so it probably wouldn’t be too helpful getting a patch of it. You don’t need them unless you’re in a situation where you might need one, so no point in getting one unless… так [note: Ukrainian for yes/yeah].
Vic: Would you say that you seek out getting new chevrons, or are they a happy surprise?
Richard: Happy surprise. I don’t think I’ve sought one out before. Apart from petrol stations actually- we got into this fascination that when we’re at a petrol station, picking up a few from the city we were just in. Okko is really good for that. We had a bunch from Kharkiv, it’s nice having these ones that symbolise the city and not just the military side of things. So, there’s another example of a chevron that’s not war related but is good to have!
Vic: Would you say that collecting chevrons makes you feel more engaged with Ukrainian culture?
Richard: I guess it makes me feel more engaged with the war, rather than Ukrainian culture. Because you have all of these brigades and can look at it and see it every day and go “That’s the brigade I’ve been helping out!“ And the chevrons are always symbolised on the videos where people are fighting and therefore you can more easily recognise your brigade and the brigades you’re helping because “Ah that’s the chevron on my wall“. So connected like that, but I don’t think I would link it to Ukrainian culture directly. I think chevrons are a worldwide thing.
Vic: That’s all the questions I had. Any other things you’d like to say about chevrons?
Richard: I want to see the best ones, the favourite ones. Oh also, making a chevron is really hard I’ll tell you that. We spent a lot of time looking at all of the different designs out there and making sure ours wasn’t looking like a military shield or anything like that, so it’s clearly differentiated between us and a military unit. I think that’s also important when you’re designing a chevron- being conscious and aware of how it comes across. If you’re making drones, or making netting, I think it’s important to differentiate yourself from someone who is military because military is incredibly, incredibly important. We are all the support crew, we are not the centre stage, we are not the main cast member.
Vic: Thank you for your time
[1] A running joke for FLK, because online donation websites will block your account if you say you make drones
[2] An example of this chevron can be seen in Appendix: Translations of Chevrons