Written by Ephrem Lukatsky and Derek Gatopoulos
KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Maxim Kilderov works amid what reminds us of death: charred metal, tattered fabric and the personal wreckage of lives snuffed out by war.
In a basement near Kiev’s Maidan Square, a Ukrainian street artist has assembled a grim collection of battlefield relics that together form an unofficial record of the Russian invasion.
Rocket launch tubes are displayed next to the diaries of a Russian intelligence officer; Uniforms of captured Russian soldiers hang from the dark walls. Thousands of military patches – symbols of unit pride, defiance and black humor – cover the display panels in an array of colors.
For Kelderov, who suffered 55 days under Russian occupation in Nova Kakhovka, southern Ukraine, these objects are evidence of a war that, he insists, should not be defined by official accounts alone.
Although the exhibition is currently limited to invitations only, Kilderoff plans to turn his collection into a museum that conveys the seriousness of war.
“I don’t want this museum to feel like a typical museum where you walk through five rooms with similar collections,” he said. “I want a room that centralizes everything, so that people feel emotional when they suddenly find themselves surrounded by these things.”
Since Russia launched its full-scale invasion in February 2022, Kelderov has collected artifacts through military contacts, exchanges and personal retrievals after nighttime air raids on Ukrainian cities.
What started out in his home became a dense collection of documents, Russian passports, helmets, weapon fragments, knives, grenades and night vision equipment. Above his head hangs Shahid’s decoy Styrofoam drone.
Among the most personal items are a mobile phone pierced by shrapnel that saved a soldier’s life, flags of military units commemorating operations in the Black Sea, drawings of soldiers and half-full cigarette packs.
Kelderoff’s visual style—doodle-like font that hides symbols and messages of resistance—is spread throughout the space.
The five-meter-long painting, titled “55,” is a maze of colorful lines and symbols representing the number of days he spent under occupation. During that period, he helped organize covert aid networks, broadcast life under Russian control live, and painted abandoned Russian vehicles with his symbols in a show of defiance.
“From day one, we started exchanging information with people inside the city and with the outside world,” he recalls. “By day 55, I was able to escape.”
After fleeing to the West, Kilderoff has organized exhibitions of his work, often using enlarged QR codes that link to videos he recorded in 2022. He designs military patches, creates artwork in battlefield debris, sells rocket tubes converted into Bluetooth speakers, and donates most of the profits to military units.
As Ukraine lives through its fourth winter of war, Kilderov says he is concerned about the return of inequality and division in a society once united by urgency and common purpose.
When he spoke to The Associated Press, he was wearing a red hat emblazoned with the slogan “Make America Great Again,” a gesture he described as deliberate sarcasm and reflective of the vulnerability of a country dependent on foreign aid that can be temporarily halted or withdrawn without warning.
In Kiev, the rented basement of his home has become a meeting point for soldiers who bring him new artifacts and stories, expanding a collection that he sees as a stark record of lived reality in Ukraine and a solidarity that he fears is fading.
He added: “When Russia attacked Kiev, people took up arms and went to fight.” “I hope we get back to that unity.”
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Volodymyr Yurchuk and Dan Pashakov contributed to this report from Kyiv. ___
This story was translated from English by an AP editor with the help of a generative AI tool.