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Svyatoslav Vakarchuk, frontman of Ukraine's most popular rock band, Okean Elzy, has joined the army
Links to articles about him and his band, and a video, below this tweet:
Link to tweet
Wikipedia on the band:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Okean_Elzy
BBC article from 2 days ago, via Yahoo:
https://www.yahoo.com/video/under-attack-ukraines-musicians-become-005849776.html
On Facebook, Svyatoslav Vakarchuk, frontman of the Ukrainian rock band Okean Elzy, is posting hourly updates about the conflict. In one video, he's visiting wounded soldiers in hospital; in another he's in a bullet-proof vest, making a speech on the streets of Kharkiv; in another, he's delivering food and fuel to Kyiv in his car.
-snip-
Slava's soft-spoken humility underplays his role in Ukraine's public life. A former politician who renounced his seat in 2008 in protest at Ukraine's corrupt political culture, he later played a key role in the Maidan Revolution that culminated in the ousting of President Viktor Yanukovych.
With Okean Elzy, he is arguably the country's most beloved singer - the equivalent of Bruce Springsteen or Paul McCartney in the West - and drew Ukraine's biggest-ever concert audience in 2014. Crucially, he is just as popular in Russia.
-snip-
"It's already too late to send just messages to fans," he says. "Now, I'm mostly talking to people like the mothers of [Russian] soldiers - and I explain to them that if they don't stop the children from going into war, they will get these children back in packages. We need to appeal to their instincts."
-snip-
Slava's soft-spoken humility underplays his role in Ukraine's public life. A former politician who renounced his seat in 2008 in protest at Ukraine's corrupt political culture, he later played a key role in the Maidan Revolution that culminated in the ousting of President Viktor Yanukovych.
With Okean Elzy, he is arguably the country's most beloved singer - the equivalent of Bruce Springsteen or Paul McCartney in the West - and drew Ukraine's biggest-ever concert audience in 2014. Crucially, he is just as popular in Russia.
-snip-
"It's already too late to send just messages to fans," he says. "Now, I'm mostly talking to people like the mothers of [Russian] soldiers - and I explain to them that if they don't stop the children from going into war, they will get these children back in packages. We need to appeal to their instincts."