This is part of a series of interviews that I conducted as part of The Chevrons Project. After their individual interviews, I asked Andrey and Olha some questions jointly.
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Vic: I guess a question for both of you- do you think that some people expect to receive a chevron when they help?
Olha: Maybe some people yes, but it depends.
Andrey: I think it is minority of people that really expect it. If you have some position, you can ask and they will.
Olha: But you didn’t ask, you didn’t ask any they were-
Andrey: Yes.
Vic: Okay. Do you feel like they’re an important part of Ukraine’s culture during the war?
Andrey: I think yes because in the end if we win this war- and I tell “if” because it’s not “when”, you need to work for “if” to become “when”- so if Ukraine wins this war, then it will be personal collections that will stay for centuries, I guess. It will be in some pubs, somebody will have a collection of it and so yes. I think it’s important.
Olha: Its important part yes, in last years I think yes, maybe since 2022 its became more important to the whole of Ukraine.
Andrey: And also there is such topic if this chevron is taken from a guy from his shoulder and unfortunately this guy is KIA[1] in the battlefield, this becomes even even even more important and I hope that less chevrons will be such prize. But just imagine that someone gives from their shoulder to you and in some months you think about this person is not here anymore, then it becomes a great very personal patch.
Vic: So Russia invaded Crimea in 2014, did people start- did chevrons appear in civilian culture that far back? Or has it been since the full-scale invasion in 2022 that they really started?
Andrey: Honestly, I don’t know when. When 2014 started I was supporting, I made some money donation, I was supporting on like civil gatherings and so on but I was not really involved to volunteering organisations so I don’t know. Maybe at the time there were many chevrons, maybe there were no chevrons, maybe they were only given to the chosen or anyway, I have no idea what happened before February 2022 with chevrons.
Olha: I think it was less, it was very rarely. Maybe, I don’t know. Because we felt it more when invasion past 3 years ago. And chevrons became popular after that.
Andrey: Yeah and I would say, in my opinion since 2014 in videos to 2022 it is just my guess, it is just my feeling, that there were already important chevrons of volunteer battalions and brigades like Azov, Donbass battalion, and Aidar battalion. These chevrons were really important. If you talk about the army, well, there were of course some brigades which performed very well like 23rd, 3rd Separate Assault brigade, or Khartiia brigade, but at that time it was like another story because some brigades were old and at the time they were full of pro-Russian guys. So it wasn’t such a big honour I guess to have a chevron of some brigade for example 52nd or 53rd or whatever brigade in 2021 because there could be some guys who fought for Ukraine’s heart, or there could be some guys who never saw the battlefield.
So I think it’s definitely in 2002 the prestige of the official armoured forces of Ukraine and national guard and border guard improved much in scale exponentially really. In 2024, 2015, sorry but in my eyes I think chevrons of Azov was worth much more than chevron of some army brigade.
Vic: Do you have any thoughts on chevrons as fashion accessories like the ones I’ve got?
Olha: I like your chevrons.
Vic: Thank you. If you see someone wearing them or that has them on a bag like mine, ones that aren’t military that they’ve obviously bought themselves, do you make any assumptions about the person?
Olha: Maybe if the person is not military and he or she wears a military patch it’s okay, but it depends. It’s okay I think if it’s like she’s saving the symbol, maybe her husband is in the army and that’s okay and she wears his chevron. Because she’s not like fully wearing military stuff so it’s okay. In other times especially, yeah.
Vic: I’ve seen ones that are like ZSUhub and looks like the PornHub logo and-
Andrey: Aha! Yeah, kind of fun military humour.
Vic: Yeah. Any other comments, anything else about chevrons?
Andrey: Yes, I would only say that somebody needs to help distinguish between chevrons personally and to organisations because it’s kind of not cool when there is some for example big IT company which gives- which has a lot of money and distributes to different regiments or brigades, and in the end one guy, for example from not even the owners or the guy who has chosen them, he just receives chevron. It can be some marketing director, and then he has a wall of chevrons while people like me needed to support a lot by own time and money, and some guy who really did nothing and was just a guy who goes to give the things to the army gets chevron and then he has- he can go to the politics and so on to be a member of parliament and he can be like “oh look look how I was helping the Ukraine army”. In fact, this dude did nothing he just received chevrons. In fact, I would say that something needs to be done- some chevrons need to be like corporation ones.
Vic: Okay, yeah. And a way of tracking the chevrons to find the terms of where they were gifted and who they were gifted to?
Andrey: Yes, it could be some diary, it can be a folder really like a record of a chevron of “this ID is on this guy”. If he gives it, he needs to write in some diary. He needs to write who he gave it to and why. Now in this case there will become more bureaucracy but it will bring structure for this thing.
Vic: Yeah. Do you agree that there should be better tracking of who’s being given chevrons?
Olha: I don’t know, I think that it doesn’t track right now- it’s not tracked now?
Andrey: No, no.
Olha: I think it’s difficult now to differentiate is it real or not, but maybe it would be better not to do the same chevrons in shops because it loses meaning if it’s the same. If it’s different like more pop culture chevron that’s okay I think. But if it’s the same design it’s not okay.
Andrey: Pretending to be military or to be-
Olha: Yes. I remember this chevron, that I was impressed when our president had awarded some soldiers- and one young soldier I think he maybe 20 years old, he received an award from president and they shook hands and one second was like silence then he took his chevron and gifted to the president. I thought why is there, what is the two seconds of silence what’s happening. He gives a chevron, this is special I think. I think our president has a lot in these cases. That was nice.
Vic: Yeah, I saw the pictures where he’s got the like display of all the chevrons he’s received. So, in some of the shops I see they’re selling chevrons of various different battalions-
Andrey: Oh <tuts>
Vic: They’re obviously like, you know, not from the batallion-
Olha: So it’s business?
Andrey: This is very bad, this is-
Olha: They’re popular yes, like Flork, popular designs.
Vic: Yeah, some of them when you look closely you see there’s differences between the actual chevrons design and what’s on the wall.
Andrey: This is absolutely a disgrace, everyone from military hates these shops because firstly they did not send this money to the military. Second is just ownership of trademarks, I’m not sure if there is room for this but come on if someone just creates- for example let’s say a new regiment of aerial vehicles and it’s new and this regiment kills all the Russians takes some money and one of their members creates a good chevron. How can anybody in Kyiv somewhere just print this chevron and sell it, for his own revenue, I mean how? It’s not moral, that’s really bad.
It’s also about education, like necessary. Because there are some really bad people, there are good people which do this but these guys do not understand. There can be some people who work in some military shops and these people are ex-military, or maybe a woman who has a husband who fights for Ukraine and she just sells his chevrons and some of the money goes to support this husband’s army. This is different, but it’s about education like lack of dignity.
Vic: Okay. What do you think of the shops that sell military chevrons, whatever chevrons?
Olha: I would not buy <laughs>
Andrey: yeah
Olha: There has to be- if they copy it’s very bad, but if it’s as I told pop culture like chevron it’s normal. This is good <gestures at my bag>
Vic: Pravda, it’s a bar in Lviv.
Olha: Yeah, it’s good idea maybe, and an idea if they support at least one brigade I don’t know like 1% from income at least- but maybe it’s too small. Of course if they support that’s okay, but not copying. Not copying. Because this is like unique. Yes, so they can do this.
Vic: So say a person was a fan of a brigade, and maybe they donate a little money online or something, but they want to show that they support that brigade so they went to one of the shops and bought the chevron, how would you feel about that person?
Andrey: He is stupid. <laughs>
Vic: <laughs> Okay.
Andrey: I mean, he or she can be a good guy which does good, but this is ridiculous step.
Olha: They can do this I think, if they like it but if they support armies it’s okay I think.
Vic: Yeah. That’s all the questions I have, thank you for your time.
Andrey: Thank you!
[1] Killed In Action