On 4 July, the War Museum hosted a meeting with NGU junior lieutenant Mark Braga and the young authors of the cartoon with the working title “Shard”. The event was moderated by Danyil Pinko, the Museum’s employee.
The story was centred on Mark’s small finding made in 2022 – a piece of russian ammunition. The soldier’s attention was drawn to the shape of the object: it resembled the outlines of Ukraine on a map, and on one side of it, the outlines of the “Motherland” could be seen.
In 2024, an officer contacted the Museum to transfer this symbolic artifact to its collection. Then the idea of creating a cartoon was born.
Museum animator Danyil Pinko and a creative team of children: Nikita Tymofeev, Kira Gamza, Maria Kozko, Anastasia Nesenyuk, Chris Kharchynska joined the implementation of the idea. A very interesting project emerged from their joint enthusiasm.
During the meeting, the children spoke about their work and how the tasks were distributed. It should be noted that they worked in two animation techniques – traditional 2D drawing and Stop-motion.
The animated film, based on an interview with Mark Braga, tells a short story about the finding. The children use creative means to play with the similarity of the shape of the fragment to the borders of Ukraine and the silhouette of the Motherland.
Mark’s commanding officer, Lieutenant Colonel Dmytro Mudrak, also joined the event. He highly appreciated the museum project and presented a music video for a motivational song for the military, which Mark performed together with his comrades.
At the end of the meeting, the fragment, along with the newly designed chevron of the military unit 2276, where Mark Braga serves, was transferred to the Museum’s collection.
