A CURTAIN hangs behind Oleg Zagorodnii, vertical folds you’d see shrouding a stage. He’s an actor by trade. In 2021, he starred in Firebird, a Soviet-era romance film that was made in Estonia. Zagorodnii says he dreams of one day attending cinema premiers in Hollywood, the heavy velvet parting to reveal bright lights and a swelling soundtrack. But from his home in Kyiv tonight, the drapes smother the weak overhead light before it can escape—no easy targets. “I don’t want to do this bullshit with Russia,” he says. “I want our independence.” Zagorodnii, 35, is strong-jawed, with the week-old beard his country’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, has made nearly as emblematic of wartime as the yellow and blue of the flag itself. Dark eyes contrast with fair skin, with brown hair neatly parted and swept from his face. He looks like an actor. He looks like a model. He was both before Russia invaded. But now, in wartime, Zagorodnii has adopted new roles: community organizer, fundraiser, and military uniform designer. “It’s more important now to do what I do,” he says. It was in the early days of the invasion, when the country held its breath to see what would happen next, that Zagorodnii first envisioned apparel design. A seamstress, with whom he’d worked in his modeling days, was newly unemployed—no need for fashion houses when your actual house is being shelled. Around the same time, a close friend, recently enlisting in the military, reached out in desperate need of warm… Click below to read the full story from Men’s Health
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