Sergey Melnikoff, known in the art world as MFF, delivers a chilling and symbolic reflection on the human cost of war in his sculpture The Fate of a Soldier. This powerful installation is crafted entirely from authentic battlefield artifacts collected from combat zones during Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. It is not an abstract work—it is a physical embodiment of pain, sacrifice, and irony.

At its core lies a rusted, battle-worn soldier’s helmet, unmistakably real and unmistakably Russian. This is no replica or metaphor; it is a relic torn from the battlefield, pierced through by a bullet—a silent witness to the instant a life was ended. The helmet does not romanticize death. Instead, it presents it raw, intact, and unfiltered. The hollow within is the void left by war.

Encircling the helmet is a machine gun cartridge belt, wrapped like a brutal halo. Among dozens of dark, spent rounds, one glints gold—a single golden bullet. This solitary golden round stands apart, a stark emblem of fate, finality, or perhaps divine judgment. Does it represent the bullet that killed, or the one yet to find its mark? Is it valor, destiny, or sheer irony?

The entire composition rests upon a toothed drive wheel from an armored personnel carrier—a literal fragment of war’s machinery. Its jagged perimeter speaks of relentless motion, of metal grinding over terrain, over lives, over borders. The soldier, whose helmet sits above it, is both victim and gear in this merciless system.