After this, I don’t know how I’m gonna go back to the stage. Later, I’m like, guys, honestly, I don’t feel like singing. It’s unnecessary for you to be here 100 percent of the time.” But it was my wish and my desire. The commander told me, “It’s your choice. And it teaches you to not forget that you’re human, first of all. It’s a big change, but you know what, I love it. You’d been living well for years, and now you’re sleeping communally with guys in the army. And it’s also very inspiring for regular Ukrainian guys. They were like, OK, so we have everyone on our team, with people from the industry going military now. At first, they were taking pictures with me. I don’t feel any status of being a celebrity. At the same time, as a reservist, I’m ready to go any second.ĭo the other soldiers treat you differently? So basically, I’m responsible for finding military equipment, and for fundraising and support. He told me there are enough soldiers at this moment, so I’m going to be a reservist, and he put me in the communication department, where I can be more helpful. I got back to Kyiv and went to the commander of a military unit and asked, how can I help? So I signed up and started to study warfare. But I started to learn history, and Russia always wanted to invade or destroy Ukraine. Before I felt all Slavic people were kind of similar. And this changed my perspective on being Ukrainian. In Ukraine, I love that we all feel like a big family right now. And they were doing crazy posts, like, “go Russia!” Some Russian artists that I respect were supporting Ukraine, but some were paid by the Russian government and were just scared, coward motherfuckers. Some of them got on my nerves so bad, because they were supporting Putin. I started to contact my artist friends from Russia. How about people you knew in the Russian music industry? I can’t live without your music.” And after the 24th, it’s like, “I wish you death. There’s messages from a year ago that are like, “I love you so much. I went through all my DM messages, and it’s so funny to see. We broke all our contracts with our Russian label, and I also transferred all the money that was supposed to be from the Russian tour to Ukrainian humanitarian aid. So from that moment, from the 24th of February, Russia doesn’t exist for me anymore. ![]() And that was one of the biggest disappointments in my life, to be honest. And I started to get lots of hateful comments, messages from once-beloved fans. 100 percent true stuff, all through my eyes. A few days after February 24th, I decided to talk to my Russian audience through social media and share everything that is going on. We live in the 21st century, and no one believed this would happen. ![]() Like so many people, did you have trouble believing they would actually invade? I know this all has been especially strange for you because you had so many fans in Russia. In a Zoom conversation during a day of personal leave from the army, he spoke in detail about his dramatically altered life. At the moment, he’s working in a communications capacity for the army, while continuing combat training. In his free time, he also recorded a new, and very different single, out today, with proceeds going to the Ukrainian military: It’s a whisper-rapped EDM banger called “Don’t Fuck With Ukraine,” complete with massed voices singing a line plucked from the real-life war: “Russian warship, go fuck yourself.”īarskih won the Ukrainian equivalent of American Idol in 2008 and has released six studio albums since then, but he’s not sure when he’ll be able to return to full-time music making. After a dangerous journey to help his family get safely abroad, he returned home to Kyiv, where he joined the Ukrainian army. “We were hearing bombs and attacks almost every hour or two,” he says.īarskih canceled a planned tour of Russia, where he had a huge fan base. Three months later, Russian troops invaded his country. Ukrainian pop star Max Barskih‘s last single, released in a more peaceful time - November 2021, to be precise - was a vaguely Ed Sheeran-esque breakup ballad called “Tequila Sunrise,” complete with a video where he danced shirtless atop a barroom table.
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