‘In the face of death, we are all equal’: Ukraine’s Roma fight for recognition for those serving in war

Viktor Ilchak volunteered to fight despite being exempt because he has four children With many lacking official documentation or unable to speak Ukrainian, the families of men killed in action are struggling to get the compensation they are owed By Emilia Sulek, photography by Béla Váradi in Uzhhorod, Ukraine A s a father of four, Viktor Ilchak was not supposed to serve in the army. Ukraine does not mobilise men who have three or more children. His wife and children cried and begged him not to go to war. But he had made up his mind. “A typical Capricorn, so stubborn,” says his wife, Sveta. It was 2015, the war in Donbas was growing in intensity. “I heard someone on TV complaining that Roma aren’t defending their homeland. This pissed me off, and so I volunteered,” says Ilchak. In the territorial recruitment centre in Uzhhorod the Ukrainian soldiers were surprised, but they had to take him. Ilchak and his family live in Radvanka, one of several Roma settlements in Uzhhorod, the capital of Transcarpathia, a Ukrainian province in the far west bordering Hungary, Slovakia, Romania and Poland. It hosts the largest population of Roma in Ukraine. About 3,500 people live here, explains Myroslav Horvat, the only Roma councillor in the city. The streets are unpaved and many houses have no running water. Ilchak’s family lives in a room measuring about 10 sq metres. There are no windows and only basic furniture. The parents and three daughters sleep on the large bed, a teenage son on the floor. Ilchak fought in Donbas and after the full-scale invasion also served around Mariupol. As a tank mechanic he was wounded four times and carries shrapnel from a Russian bomb in his arm. On his army jacket there shine several medals, including the Order for Courage, presented to him by president Volodymyr Zelenskyy. He also got one from the city council because no other Roma person in Uzhhorod had served as long as him – a whole decade. Last September, Ilchak returned home. For now, he take...