Ukrainian band Antytila have posted a video with footage they’ve captured from the frontlines during “one day from the war” in Kyiv. Watch the video below.
The pop-rock band are currently serving as soldiers in their war-torn country. “We are driving from our positions in the frontline directly to our base to do one important thing,” frontman Taras Topolia says at the start of the video adding: “We are situated in Kyiv, the capital of Ukraine, and I wanted to show one day from the war”.
Topolia goes on to explain the band’s task “to give first aid to wounded soldiers” as well as protective gear, as he pans the cell phone camera over to them preparing gas masks and chemical protection suits.
The video also shows the band prepping ammunition and standing by a World War II bunker, with the frontman commenting that “after 80 years, the Ukrainian army and Ukrainian people [are] fighting again, the Russian occupiers.”
At one point Toplia stops in front of multiple crumbling homes, saying: “Destroyed by the Russian fires, houses and thousands have been killed by the Russians, troops, Ukrainian people. You should know this, that we have no choice but to defend our country, and we will do this until we get the victory of course.”
Formed in 2007, Antytila have released six studio albums and are a stadium act in their home country. They were planning another stadium tour there this summer before the war started.
“There are a lot of social messages in our music,” Toplia told NME earlier this week. “We’re not just for entertainment – we like to say something important through our music. We try to show people some light and say that everything will be alright, even if it seems hard right now.”
He continued: “We try to explain to our fans how to resist and live through dark times, as much as we love to write songs for fun and dancing.”
At the time, the band also told NME, that they were in fear of a chemical attack from Russian forces – but were united and resolved to defend their country.
Topias also said that he was “collecting the pictures and emotions from this war inside of me”, adding that: “When Ukraine gets the victory, we will write a lot of new songs and we’ll tell a lot of stories about this time of our lives.”
Antytila made headlines earlier this month after posting a plea to Ed Sheeran, asking the singer-songwriter to allow them to play the ‘Concert For Ukraine’ fundraising event remotely from Kyiv where they are defending the capital against Russian invaders.
Sheeran later responded by saying that “I love you, I stand with you” to all Ukrainians and that he “couldn’t wait” to check the band’s music out. However, they were denied the chance to perform – with organisers claiming they were “only able to focus on the humanitarian situation, not the politics or the military conflict”.
The star-studded concert two-hour concert which took place in Birmingham on March 29, and raised £12.2million for war relief efforts.
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