More than 50 people who wear Yulik’s tattoos have been killed in the war in Ukraine. The tattoo artist keeps count. Now he is a soldier, too.
“It’s sad burying your own work,” he said.
We spent two days inside Tattoo Hall in Dnipro, a city about 60 miles from the front line, to see who walked through the door.
A soldier arrived five days after a Russian drone strike wounded him, wanting a tattoo before returning to the fight. A 17-year-old chose one word for his first tattoo: “acceptance.” A man carried a memorial to his childhood best friend, killed at Bakhmut.
A young woman who survived the 2023 Russian missile strike that took her family sat for the needle.
Tattoos are meant to last a lifetime. In the fifth year of Russia’s full-scale invasion, that promise carries a different weight.
Watch the full documentary above.
