“It’s Inspiring When Foreigners Come to Defend Your Land” — Musician, Assault Soldier, Engineer Roman “Daoshi”

Roman from Ternopil is a serviceman and an engineer of unmanned aerial systems in one of the international units of the Armed Forces of Ukraine. In civilian life, he is the founder and director of a music school, a musician, a sound producer, and an active volunteer. Before the war, his world revolved around delicate musical equipment. Now his sound-engineering experience serves a different purpose — not concert halls, but combat missions.

Everything in life has a beginning. Every decision goes through stages of acceptance. People do not always become heroes in a single moment, as if touched by a magic wand. For Roman, joining the army also began not with bravado, but with questions to himself. He understood well that civilian experience does not automatically make you a soldier. So he started with preparation — step by step, but persistently:

“I ended up in the army kind of “at a push.” When I received my first draft notice, I didn’t go. But I started thinking, because I couldn’t do anything — I was a civilian. My Military Medical Commission clearance was expiring anyway, and I knew I’d have to show up sooner or later. I understood I wouldn’t avoid it — I would have to serve. So I went to study UAVs. First aerial reconnaissance, then FPV. Before that, I completed a tactical medicine course. After the training, I came to the enlistment office, and they sent me to basic military training.”

Circumstances unfolded in such a way that Roman was first assigned to the Air Assault Forces. For someone without a military background, it was a sharp turn — but not a reason to retreat. He treated it as another stage he had to pass through:

“I’ve been on combat missions. I know what a combat deployment is. I know what it’s like to be wounded. I know what it’s like when people die next to you. It’s a good school, and it’s necessary to have that experience. Combat is a serious kind of education.”

Roman went on his first combat mission in Vovchansk. The position and the overall situation were extremely difficult: they constantly had to stand in cold water. On top of that, the enemy was closely “listening” to radio traffic. Any radio transmission was followed by incoming fire. As a result, entering and leaving positions became especially risky maneuvers. During one such movement from one position to another, Roman and his comrades came under fire:

“Two guys were killed, and I was wounded in the eye and the neck. It was an automatic grenade launcher, I think. It hits very fast. I wasn’t even on my own position at the time. I stayed there for three or four days, then even led the senior guys out, because I already knew how to enter properly. That was my combat experience: first mission — immediately with wounds and two dead. In combat, everything happens very fast.”

The evacuation went well, but a long period of treatment and recovery lay ahead:

“Recovery took a long time. After a concussion, it takes a long time to come back to yourself. And even when it feels like you’ve recovered and your body starts to relax, it catches up with you again. It splits you into two states: you’re very calm, but at the same time very restless.”

Roman did not know the exact severity of his injury, but even lying in a hospital bed, he felt drawn back to combat. Nevertheless, doctors strongly advised otherwise:

“The doctor recommended — even shouted at me — that I not return to combat. Because once you experience it, two weeks pass, and you want to feel it again. You want that sharp adrenaline because you can’t get it anywhere else. It’s special. But I understood the doctor wasn’t shouting for no reason.”

After his injury, Roman had the option to end his military service for health reasons. He chose not to exercise that right. On the contrary, he insisted on continuing to serve, seeing it as a conscious duty:

“I decided that since I had joined voluntarily and with motivation, I owed this country at least two or three years of service. I had contacts with the International Legion and a recommendation from them. I renewed that contact and was transferred. The 71st Brigade released me — well, ‘released’ is relative: I didn’t pass the medical board in the Air Assault Forces, so I was discharged from them. I have an injury to my left eye — it can’t see. So I’m no longer fit for that type of combat position.”

Roman remained in the military but changed roles. Instead of a combat position, he chose an engineering one, where he could be no less useful. His experience with technology naturally transitioned into working with drones:
“I worked as a sound engineer for almost twenty years — and now I work as an engineer again. These fields are similar in many ways: soldering, firmware, equipment setup. I don’t find anything particularly difficult about it. They’re related fields, and I enjoy this. I like making things work.”

Roman has a talent for languages: he is fluent in English and Polish and has some knowledge of German. However, in the International Legion, he mostly communicates with machines. His main interlocutors are drones and electronic circuits. Still, another, deeper motivation brought him here:

“It’s inspiring when foreigners come to defend your land. There’s no way it doesn’t motivate you. What kind of people they are hardly matters. Everyone is afraid — that’s normal. What matters is that a person comes from their calm land to your country at war to fight in your place. Especially when you yourself are looking for a thousand reasons not to go fighting.”

Roman also helps his unit on another level — as a volunteer. Having worked in culture for many years, he easily finds support among musicians, artists, composers, and other creative people. As a result, he regularly organizes fundraisers for equipment intended to reduce the occupiers’ manpower and hardware:

“I raise a lot of funds for drones because we constantly need a huge number of components. The biggest shortage is in parts. For example, VTX modules that transmit video — they’re always expensive. Quality cameras, antennas, and reliable motors — everything has to be top-quality, so the signal isn’t lost, and the image stays stable. A good 10-inch FPV drone with strong motors costs about 20–25 thousand hryvnias. And we use it as a kamikaze drone. In a single day, we can send out 20–30 of these units. That means colossal expenses — a lot of money every day. UAVs are an extremely resource-intensive field.”

While serving in the military, Roman remains a person of culture:

“I clearly realize that I live a double life — both civilian and military. And I don’t feel any discomfort in society. Sometimes soldiers feel like they have to readjust to a peaceful life. I don’t need to readjust.”

Still, military life — not civilian — remains the priority. Together with his brothers-in-arms, Roman continues to fine-tune drones with meticulous care, like instruments before a performance. And the aircraft he assembles and configures take to the sky to destroy as many invaders from the Northeast as possible:

“We always review the videos from the frontline. And when there’s no hit, the reaction is simple: “Argh… okay, then the next one.” It’s a kind of dopamine swing. You watch the next one, and the next, and another. I always stop at the video where there is a hit. There’s a hit — that’s it, you can go to sleep. And it really motivates and inspires you: it means we’re doing our job, and it’s effective. Russians die — which means more Ukrainians stay alive.”

Text: Dmytro Tolkachov

Photo, video: Volodymyr Patola, Yevhen Malienko

Editing: Volodymyr Patola