Ukraine, one year on : how music is resisting to the war

Exactly one year to the day from when the invasion of Ukraine started, some musicians are fighting on the frontline, while others are playing shows all around the world to spread their message and raise funds for their country. We talked to several Ukrainian artists and key members of the music industry about how they experienced these last twelve months and how to help them.

This anniversary is not one that we celebrate with joy. Still, it is necessary to take a moment to remember what happened one year ago. On 24 February 2022, Russia invaded Ukraine in a still ongoing military operation. In keeping with the values that we have always stood for at Europavox (freedom, peace, empathy, brotherhood among countries…), we took the pulse of today’s Ukrainian music scene and found a strong, hopeful community. Some of its members have fled the country, just like 8 million of their compatriots, and try to help from abroad with an impressive energy, a relentless creativity and amazing organizational skills. Others still live in Ukraine, either fighting in the army, or working on music initiatives with the support of the local Ministry of Culture.

The latter is the case for Vladyslav Yaremchuk, based in Kyiv. Before the war, he was the programming director of Atlas festival, the biggest music festival in Ukraine. He has decided to make the most of his tools (in particular his network in the music industry) and he has worked on several major projects to help his country, including the non-profit charity Music Saves UA and the international TV concert-marathon Save Ukraine.

“When the invasion began, I was visiting my mum for a few days with my girlfriend and my brother”, Vladyslav remembers. “I started scrolling through the news and on Telegram on my phone. I saw videos of explosions and rockets, and my hand was shaking so much that I couldn’t hold my phone properly. I had never felt anything like that before. I had to hold it with both hands. It took us a day or two to realize that we were in a relatively safe space, as my hometown is quite small and located between Kyiv and the Belarus border. It was really scary but we tried to be smart and resist. After a few days spending 16-18 hours of screen time on my phone, I couldn’t sleep and I thought I could do something more productive.”

Coming from a drum’n’bass background, he decided to make a charity fundraising drum’n’bass album called Together with Ukraine. ‘Working again saved me. My headaches stopped, and I could sleep better because I could concentrate on new projects instead of being constantly stressed by reading the news. That album ended up bigger than any of us could have imagined, with 136 tracks. We were the best selling album on Bandcamp for at least a couple of weeks and we raised more than a hundred thousand pounds for charity.’ He is also involved in the Music Saves UA charity.

Nowadays, he travels back and forth between Kyiv and other European cities (this involves never-ending journeys by train or car, since flying is impossible in Ukraine at the moment) to keep organizing new music projects and maintain awareness about what’s going on in his country.

Maintaining awareness is crucial for the Ukrainian people. It’s why Europavox is organizing a panel discussion about the war and its impact on music during the Europavox Bucharest festival next April. A representative of Music Export Ukraine (an organization aimed at helping Ukrainian artists to build international careers) will be there.

When it all started a year ago, Alona Dmukhovska, co-founder and head of Music Export Ukraine, woke up to the sound of many messages from her friends and family asking if she was okay. Three days before, she had organized an online international event with the British Council in Ukraine, and the amount of work she had to do (follow-ups, payments, etc.) kept her away from the news. “It was, and still is, a huge surprise for me to see that something like this is possible in the 21st century”, she explains. “Starting a war for absolutely no reason. Destroying a country, your neighbors who just don’t want to live like you do. It was a big shock and we didn’t know what to do, whether it was safer to leave the city or if that would be even more dangerous.” 

“I stayed in Kyiv for a week,” she continues. “The first evacuation trains were free but packed with thousands of people. Finally with six other people in two cars, we decided to go South. It took us three days to go to the Romanian border – a journey that would normally take about seven hours. When we got to the border, the guys travelling with us weren’t allowed to leave Ukraine because of martial law, so they had to leave us women crossing the border by foot, and wondering what to do next.” 

Dmukhovska got in touch with some people she knew in the Romanian music business and stayed in Bucharest for a while, before moving to Germany where she has friends. She has been living there since April 2022 and, just like her friend Vladyslav Yaremchuk, her job has changed too. “We have done dozens and dozens of bookings and concerts for Ukrainian artists, even though it’s not normally what we do”, she says. 

“It’s important to find as many opportunities as possible for them. The European music industry was already suffering because of the lack of staff after Covid, when many people found a new occupation. At the same time, we have a big Ukrainian music industry, not only artists but also all the technical and production staff who have qualifications but can’t work in their country right now. So we created an online database to establish connections and help them find seasonal jobs or short-term assignments, because we don’t know how long this situation could last.”

Music Export Ukraine is one of the reasons why the Ukrainian music scene is still visible and energetic, playing shows around Europe, taking part in talks during a lot of different festivals. “We try to be as active as possible”, Alona sums up. “We take every opportunity to raise awareness, but also support our artists and make them a little bit more visible on an international level. The Ukrainian music scene is not very well known and it mostly lives abroad at the moment.”

How would she describe this scene? “It has a lot of historical roots. On the one hand, we have a strong tradition of folk music. Maybe you know the band DakhaBrakha, who are very successful, and take their inspiration from our ancient folklore. I would say Ukraine is a singing nation. During work or leisure, Ukrainians are known to sing all the time. On the other hand, a couple of weeks ago I talked about this during a discussion at Eurosonic festival: we had a cool pop movement called ‘Mustache funk’ in the late Sixties and early Seventies, during the Soviet era. It was played by young creative artists who were experimenting with psychedelic, funky, upbeat and unusual music.”

A documentary called ‘Mustache Funk’ (released in 2021) is about this subculture. Back then the government strictly controlled everything, and when officials came to the concerts they only stayed for a few songs at the beginning to make sure that everything went according to the rules. “That’s why the first three or four songs were always boring and bad, the bands knew how to get around the rules”, Alona continues.

“The second part of their shows, when the officials had left, were the complete opposite, exciting and innovative! Some bands played 300 shows a year, which was unheard of at that time. It was a dangerous time too: musicians could be killed or sent to Siberia. Their music was banned so for a while we didn’t know about them. We are only rediscovering them now. We now have a stable industry like in Western countries, with strong electronic and metal scenes for example, but we don’t have the same educational system to learn how music should be made and played, so we experiment and find out our way to do it! That’s why the best word I can think of to describe Ukrainian music is freedom.”

Vladyslav Yaremchuk remains hopeful. “It’s a vibrant, interesting scene with a lot of potential,” he says. “Everyone now wants to sing in Ukrainian. There are so many topics to discuss, so many artists for whom music is the only way to express themselves. Concerts are about music, but they also give an atmosphere of unity. We are finding more and more creative ways to raise funds for the army or charities, and inventing some of the craziest projects I’ve ever heard of. Some of these special shows will never happen again, but I’m sure that this spirit of innovation will remain. The Ukrainian music scene lives through a period of time when it doesn’t have any resources, and it doesn’t have easy access to touring. When it can live a normal life again, I’m very positive about its future because it finally came into itself.”

Among these modern bands who are keeping the Ukrainian scene alive are Kyiv-based psychedelic trio Love’n’Joy. “When the war broke out, we had just finished mixing and recording our new album three days before”, Anton Pushkar (singer, songwriter and guitarist who spent his childhood in Crimea) tells us. ‘Half Home’ was released in September 2022 in a very different world to the one it was recorded in. Anton managed to take an evacuation train from Kyiv to Ternopil (in the West of the country) where his grandmother lives. He stayed there for a few months and had an idea: “We met with our musician friend in the West of Ukraine from Shpytal Records, and together we decided to launch a foundation called Musicians Defend Ukraine,” he recalls. 

“Ukrainian musicians have become volunteers. At the beginning, it was just meant to collect money from our friends in the music industry in Europe, and see if they can organize some shows. It worked, and we managed to help the musicians who are fighting in the war by buying them helmets and other equipment, and sending that to them on the frontline. We are now a team of seven people.” Nowadays, Pushkar spends his life on the road, touring Europe with Love’n’Joy and promoting this foundation – they will be playing the Europavox festival in France on July 2nd.

Another of these Ukrainian artists currently living abroad is Alina Pash. She’s been in Los Angeles for about a month in order to write new music. She joins us on Zoom, saying “I understand that everybody’s living their life and they don’t want to be in this trauma and trouble all the time. It’s logical that Ukraine is less prominent in global news, but at the same time it’s so sad… What more could I do to explain to the world how it is? If you are not Ukrainian you will never understand.” 

“All the details are important and precious for us, for instance not working with Russia right now.” She tells us how she recently refused a lucrative offer to have one of her songs as the soundtrack for a Hollywood movie because she found out that the script glamorizes the Russian mafia. “I don’t want the physical destruction of Russia”, she explains. “I just want justice. This cruelty has no place in the world, it’s pure evil and now the whole world can see it. There is no going back, it’s not in the shadow anymore. Of course I will remember February 24th 2022 for the rest of my life.” 

After living in the capital for twelve years (“I saw 54 countries and to me there’s no better place than Kyiv”), she was in her hometown in the Carpathian Mountains of Zakarpattia in the West of the country, near the Romanian border, on that fateful day. “When my father went to the frontline, he told me that the best I could do was something I chose with my heart, and that is being an artist. So I decided to speak to people, whether at charity concerts or on the street, and explain all the layers of the story, why it’s important for Ukrainians but also for humanity in general.”

Alona Dmukhovska from Music Export Ukraine also believes that Ukraine must remain a major topic: “The rest of the world is tired of this war, and we can totally understand that. But it’s important not to forget about us. It’s mentally impossible to read all of the horrible stories in the news. But when we tell our personal story in a song, people are eager to listen and sympathize. This is the power of music.”

So what could music lovers do to support the Ukrainian music scene, apart from thinking about its musicians? Alona Dmukhovska has many ideas: “Listen to Ukrainian music on streaming services because it will give the artists the opportunity to earn at least a little bit of money and have some support. A lot of them are volunteers in the army now.” 

“If you’re working for the radio, put a couple of Ukrainian songs on, it’s manageable. If you’re a festival, give a couple of slots to Ukrainian artists.”

Vladyslav Yaremchuk agrees: “Discover Ukrainian music, not because there is a war happening, but because it was already worth discovering before the war started. This music is amazing, honestly! You will enjoy it if you try it. Interacting with it and sharing it with other people is a big help already. If any Ukrainian artists are coming to play in your country, go and buy a ticket.” 

“All of them are donating money. Whenever they’re playing at festivals, go and check them out. Listen to their stories. Buy their music if you can and share it. Just give them some attention, and if you genuinely like them, interact with them. When it comes to the professionals of the music industry, play them on the radio, and book Ukrainian artists at your venues or your festivals. We are ready to make everything possible to make it happen. We want to be seen, heard and helped.”

This sense of solidarity is not only necessary, but vital. Their jobs have evolved, gaining new responsibilities to speak out and support their country, but we hope that someday soon they will all be able to focus on their passion, music, with a lighter spirit in more peaceful times. We also sincerely hope that we will not have to commemorate this anniversary again next year.