Armed with just a guitar, meet the man helping Ukraine resist Russia

Ask anybody outdoors of Ukraine what the nation’s hottest musical property is and Kalush Orchestra will doubtless be the response after the group wowed Europe to win Eurovision.

However inside Ukraine, there’s an artist much more in tune with Ukraine’s present predicament: Taras Borovok.

The 49-year-old has shot to fame after making a propaganda tune that hails the impression of Turkish drones in stymieing Russia’s advances.

Known as Bayraktar, the identical identify because the drone, the tune mocks Vladimir Putin, the Russian military and even the nation’s well-known cabbage soup, shchi.

‘I simply knew that I had to assist my nation’

Even on the flip of the yr and almost eight weeks earlier than Russia’s invasion, Borovok was satisfied Moscow would assault.

He joined Ukraine’s military instantly after Russian forces moved throughout the border on 24 February.

However Borovok would not be instantly concerned within the army battle; as an alternative, he was requested to assist win the knowledge conflict. 

Armed with simply his guitar, he sat down in his Kyiv studio to jot down what has change into one of many conflict’s hottest songs.

“My good friend within the army got here to me and requested whether or not I might write a tune about Bayraktars. He mentioned that they labored nicely on the battlefield,” Borovok advised Euronews.

“It actually solely took me 15 to twenty minutes to jot down. It was swift, and I had no concept that it could change into so fashionable so quick.” 

It shortly grew to become successful and was considered on YouTube lots of of 1000’s of instances.

Ukrainian TV typically reveals photos of Russian army automobiles that the drones had destroyed and Borovok’s music was the right accompaniment. 

“I’ve written songs all my life. So long as I keep in mind,” mentioned Borovok, who additionally makes movies and memes for the army. “When the invasion began, I simply knew that I had to assist my nation. One of the best ways that I might [was] with music.”

However Bayraktar just isn’t the one tune fashionable amongst Ukrainians and linked to Russia’s invasion.

Despite the fact that Kalush Orchestra’s Eurovision-winning monitor Stefania was written earlier than 24 February, its lyrics concerning the hardship of being a mom are broadly interpreted because the battle by Ukraine to defend itself from Russia.

Andriy Khlyvnyuk, one among Ukraine’s largest rock stars, give up a US tour together with his group BoomBox and returned to serve within the nation’s Territorial Defence Pressure. He recorded a model of the Ukrainian people tune Oh, the Crimson Viburnum within the Meadow, which was initially written to honour Sich Riflemen, a Ukrainian unit within the Austro-Hungarian Military throughout World Battle 1.

Khlyvnyuk’s recording, posted on Instagram, shortly went viral. Pink Floyd used it because the vocal monitor on their new single Hey, Hey, Rise Up!

‘I’m attempting to offer constructive power to cheer folks up’

Borovok just isn’t shy about calling the tune propaganda. He admits his objective is to affect folks, maintain morale excessive and scale back Russian affect. 

Given Ukraine was a part of the Soviet Union till 1991, many Ukrainians nonetheless communicate Russian and watch the information in that language. 

Borovok says the shortage of a streamlined Ukrainian effort to counter Russian propaganda means small components of society imagine within the Russian narrative of the conflict.

“We must always have accomplished one thing a very long time in the past, however now at the least, the conflict appears to have made folks perceive that being Ukrainian may be very completely different from being Russian,” mentioned Borovok. 

“We’re an impartial nation and we’re speculated to be divided from Russia. 

“That is the ultimate battle for our folks to withstand Russia. We have now been combating for this so a few years, even beneath the Soviet Union.”

When the conflict began, Borovok despatched his spouse and kids to Poland, so he didn’t have to fret about their security. 

He advised them he needed to be in Ukraine and do what he might to assist his nation. He hasn’t seen them since.

“On the primary days of the conflict, all info platforms collapsed,” mentioned Borovok, who helped arrange Fb pages and be sure that info got here again up and working. “Within the first days, I additionally spent quite a lot of time creating humorous memes concerning the Russian troopers.”

Borovok says he typically wakes up at night time with concepts for music and writes them down in order to not overlook. All his focus is on work from when he wakes up till he goes to mattress.

“I’m attempting to offer constructive power to cheer folks up and make them imagine,” mentioned Borovok, who has a level in psychology.

He typically makes use of that when writing songs to find out what works greatest. He says that music has a novel energy to succeed in folks as a result of it doesn’t require folks to learn one thing actively. He tries to make his songs straightforward to know for each individual.

“I attempt to stability between making them humorous however not utterly like a comedy,” he mentioned Borovok. “To make it work, I must get folks to not panic however imagine that we will win.”

Propaganda music used to ‘sanitise a grim state of affairs’

Professional Dr Kate Guthrie says music is commonly an important device for holding morale excessive throughout conflict.

“Once they had the air raids in Britain, throughout World Battle II, typically folks would go and collect in communal areas, like underground stations in London, or like communal tube shelters and be singing,” Dr Guthrie, from the College of Bristol, advised Euronews. “I perceive it was a large a part of the type of tradition that developed there. And oftentimes, folks can be spending, you realize, lengthy components of, like hours and hours of the night time down there.”

Some songs had been about a greater tomorrow, whereas others used humour to make it simpler to stay via conflict. Guthrie, who focuses her analysis on wartime propaganda music, factors to wonderful examples of tracks akin to We’re Gonna Cling Out The Washing On The Siegfried Line and Run Adolf Run.

“I feel all of those are utilizing comedy to make gentle of or sanitise a state of affairs that is principally grim. It is a approach of society exploring the darkest issues in life in a approach that is much less existentially threatening or overwhelming,” she mentioned.

“I do not assume that individuals did formal statistical surveys, however from the sorts of qualitative accounts, we will see that individuals talked about their experiences of group singing through the conflict. Folks’s reminiscences of them counsel that it was extremely highly effective.”