Not Even War Can Stifle Ukraine’s Punk Rock Spirit
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June 18, 2025
“Since February 24, 2022, the life of every Ukrainian has changed completely,” says Dee Lav, a punk musician living in Kyiv. “Every morning, we start by reading the news and asking about the condition of our friends and relatives. In addition to the fact that war brings physical injuries, it also brings psychological pressure, and whether you want it or not, it all settles in the subcortex of your brain. Daily atrocities from the Russian side—photos of corpses, murders of children, threats of nuclear weapons—these things do not allow us to live our ‘best lives’ because, looking at this, we understand that this could happen to any of us.”
Dee Lav is just one of the many punk musicians continuing to make music in the war-torn country of Ukraine. For those outside of the battle zones, the fighting can seem like abstract soundbites on the six o’clock news or maybe a 30-second read in the newspaper. For those living in Ukraine, however, the war means actual bombs being dropped on buildings, tanks rumbling down the street, surprise attack drones, and people being shot—that is, they are feeling the effects of the war right now and every day.
For example, Dee Lav’s old pop-punk band, Cardinal Birds, went on hiatus when their guitarist joined the Ukrainian armed forces. Meanwhile, Dee Lav’s father joined the Voluntary Formation of the Territorial Community of the City of Kyiv in the first days of the full-scale war. He also later joined the Armed Forces and was sent to the Donetsk region, where he engaged in direct combat. The B-side to Dee Lav’s first single features recordings from the actual battlefield. (More on that later).
Yet despite inner-city battles, a number of bands are finding music and punk more meaningful than ever. One of them is street-punk outfit Cios. “Punk is always relevant,” they say in a collective statement. “Right now, punk should be tearing into the madness around us. If Russian missiles don’t wipe us out, we’ll end up enslaved by American mining giants or global agri-corporations. Either way, someone’s lining up to chew us up.”
To that end, Cios has addressed the war directly with their song “24.02.22,” which offers a mix of anger and hopelessness. They say: “The morning of February 24, Russia launched its first massive missile strike across Ukraine. Their troops crossed the border in several places, military convoys rolled in, sirens started blaring, people were legging it from border towns, self-defense groups were forming, block posts were popping up, and paranoia about Russian agents was through the roof. Our song expresses a chaotic mess of emotions, snapshots, and impressions from those first few days. Back then, everything was chaos. No one had a clue what was coming next, but we all knew things would never go back to how they were.”
Noise-synth-punkers ZzuppamanN share a similar perspective. Founder Hryhorii Vashchenkov says, “We are based in Sumy, a city located about 30 kilometers from the front line. Everything is felt intensely and vividly: air raid alerts can last more than a day; there are constant drone, missile, and aerial bomb attacks; civilian deaths, including children; overcrowded hospitals. Funerals of friends and relatives have become a terrifying routine. So if you really want to understand what’s happening here, we invite you to visit us.”
The impact of Russia’s invasion has made its way into Vashchenkov’s music in similar fashion to how Cios and the other Ukrainian bands have found their art to be affected by the war: “The nuclear threat has been an inseparable part of Ukrainian life since Chernobyl,” Vashchenkov says. “With Russia’s invasion, we now live in a state of permanent expectation of new Hiroshimas and Nagasakis. This anxiety found expression in music.”
Psychobilly rockers Outer Space concur. While Outer Space has a swinging, perhaps more lighthearted sound compared to their countrymates, their lives and music are equally affected by the battles. Vocalist Valerii Piskun says, “Every night, missiles and drones fly over us. We hear sirens, explosions, and machine gun fire. It’s in Kyiv, the capital of Ukraine, where about four million people now live, and this is happening all over the country. Cities where fighting is taking place are simply completely destroyed from the face of the earth.”
Yet Outer Space also feels that, in the wake of Russia’s mounting threats, music and art are more relevant than ever. “We can only listen to music now,” Valerii says. “Books, movies, work, nature, friends…and music! These are the things that keep us from going crazy.”
Here are a few of the Ukrainian punk bands living through—and making music in—the middle of war.
Dee Lav started his solo project by releasing a single on the third anniversary of the Russian invasion. While his long-running band, Cardinal Birds, leaned more into radio-friendly pop punk, his solo project is directly political and more chaotic. A-side “My Russomisia is Stored in my Tits” has direct, literal lyrics that read like an anarchic news report, contrasted with the GISM-esque vocal abstractions. Meanwhile, B-side “The Sounds of War” is directly out of the Crass playbook and samples a field recording of Russian bombs being dropped on Ukrainian soil, recorded by Dee Lav’s father on the front lines. Whoa. Dee Lav says, “From May 2022 to May 2023, my Dad and his comrades defended the territory of Ukraine from the Russian occupiers. Now my dad is demobilized, and now he is well known for creating FPV drones in his kitchen under the nickname ‘Sergeant Kit.’”
If you couldn’t tell by the band name (or the logo or their most recent album cover) Subscum is HEAVILY influenced by early Napalm Death—and it rules. Grounded in grindcore, the band flips between super-fast punk-metal and simple noise destruction. This year’s Massgrave Summit is one of the band’s most focused and ripping releases—it’s too bad the inspiration for the record is what it is as Subscum dwells on the carnage inflicted by Russia upon the Ukrainian population. Indeed, as the band states, “All proceeds from this album will be donated to the victims of the Russian imperialist war against Ukraine.”
The band’s Vlad says of the release, “This album is shaped entirely by the world we live in today—a world defined by war, loss, anxiety, and disbelief. It’s about injustice, the collapse of shared values, inequality, and the constant feeling of screaming into a void. We’re channeling the daily emotional burden of living in a country under attack. Every day brings new tragedies—bombed hospitals, destroyed schools, entire families killed in their sleep by long-range missiles. Over time, even this horror starts to feel like routine.”
Vlad also reflects on how grindcore itself—traditionally a radical and anti-war metal subgenre—has become more relevant than ever: “Many people in the Ukrainian punk scene—some of whom used to play in the bands, organize shows or run DIY labels—are now on the frontlines. They hate war, but they also understand the necessity of defending their homes and communities. At the same time, it’s frustrating to hear people outside Ukraine repeat narratives that suggest we should surrender in order to stop the war. That’s not pacifism; that’s erasure. We need support, weapons, and solidarity to preserve freedom and the possibility of any kind of future here. It’s also important to acknowledge how damaging it is when people romanticize the Soviet Union simply because it’s anti-capitalist. For us, as people whose families and culture suffered under that regime, its symbols are no different than those of fascism.”
The influence of NYHC and the mid-’80s hardcore scene has spread far and wide in the past few decades, eventually making its way to Ukraine’s HOMESICK. After 15 years as a band, HOMESICK make no bones about being influenced by CBGB’s matinees. Their Concreto EP is packed with rumbling riffs and barked vocals, and it even has a song called “Shelter.” Yet, quite interestingly, after Russia’s invasion, they released a folk punk track called “Under the Sirens.” That track calls for resilience and unity in the face of an advancing enemy and, quite importantly, ends with a note of optimism.
Given Devo’s status as the pioneers of egg punk, and the Midwest’s central role in the lo-fi synth scene, it’s kind of shocking to hear a primitive-synth band come from the place that used to be the home base of the Cossacks. It’s even more shocking how good they are, especially on 2024’s BIG MESS, a barbed, bouncy, and hilarious EP. The lead track just completely tears into the modern A.I. hell: “You are just a sick son of a bitch/ I hope you fucking die/ A.I. fuck you!” The remainder of the EP is just as fun and sardonic as they stack vitriolic contemplation on top of some really catchy tunes.
Do you enjoy the new wave of spooky-ish punk-ish bands like Devil Master, Zorn, Spiter, and Poison Ruïn? Then you will love Погань (“Bad”)—their new EP, Ворожба (Divination) is completely coated in lo-fi black metal echo and bleakness, riding a clanging hardcore punk undertow; their lyrics are all about witches and spells and vampires and curses. Between the deadpan growling and John Carpenter synths, it’s not clear if the band is having fun or if they are deadly serious, which is probably the point.
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Cios are full-on street punk with a direct message. “There’s no such thing as a normal life anymore,” says the band. “Russia is killing people every day—on the frontlines and with missiles hitting cities all across Ukraine. In the east, civilians, including kids, are dying from rocket strikes every day. There’s a proper meat grinder at the front. And in the rear, the Ukrainian recruitment offices are snatching men off the street to send them to the frontlines with nothing but their arses hanging out. Everyone’s got mates or relatives out there fighting, and every day is just worry and fear. We’ve all lost someone, either killed or seriously wounded. So, forget about stable jobs, family life, culture, or politics. The only stable thing is the constant anxiety.”
While some of the band’s contemporaries have a more hopeful message, Cios’s perspective seems to be a bit bleaker: “If the war does pause, we’re looking at two crap options: Either local gang wars over business and power, or some authoritarian military-style dictatorship. Neither sounds great.”
Death Pill started out as a sort of riot grrrl band, but quickly incorporated hardcore, metal, and even thrash into their music. Despite the war, they’ve been working on a new LP (only one member lives in Ukraine right now, in part due to the battles). The upcoming Sologamy doubles down on the band’s metal influences. The lead single, “Craterface,” twists like a thrash track while the band details personal challenges: “It’s not a game/ I’ll be your self-destruction!”
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While Mauser is unashamedly based in hardcore, they pull from that genre’s late ‘80s and early ‘90s forms, a callback to when bands weren’t afraid to get a little weird. (They covered Bad Brains’s “House of Suffering”—a left-field deep cut as opposed to one of the classic 60-second slammers—not too long ago.) “Тривога” (Anxiety) starts with an atmospheric rumble before shifting into an almost jazzy section, then transforming into a ‘60s-rock-god guitar solo. The band’s sound constantly morphs, but their political rage is consistent, as illustrated by the lyrics to the aforementioned song: “Why do you conquer other people’s borders?/ Bringing about the death of millions/ This is a dictator’s game with a historical context/ Outside the text, a typical tactic of imperial growth!”
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If you couldn’t tell by the name, ZzuppamanN is pure noise and chaos. Their new EP, Tliiem, is one of their more challenging releases. According to the band, the release follows the five stages of grief as detailed in the Kubler-Ross model. Lead track “Youtubu” has traces of the Screamers’ synth-punk destruction, but it also has a robotic big band section and a portion that could be an ‘80s dance hit—if there weren’t grinding gears wreaking havoc in the background.
Who knew that Ukraine had a vibrant psychobilly scene? Well, they did. The genre took off in the ‘90s with foundational bands Freno De Pedales, Shakin’ Guts, OT VINTA, and Mad Heads; it was solidified in 2005 with the advent of the Ukrabilly BANG festival, which attracted psychobilly bands and fans from all over Ukraine and abroad. Outer Space keep that tradition going strong with their fast-rockin’, hard-clackin’ bounce, showcased most recently on 2024’s Nightwork. As a result of the war, the band is on indefinite hiatus; vocalist and double bassist Valerii Piskun is currently in the Ukrainian army defending the country.
“We understand that the world is tired of this war. Everyone just wants to live their lives, have fun, go to concerts, and drink beer. And we are tired too,” Piskun says. “This is a very terrible and unjust war, the only goal of which is to ensure that there is no more such a country as Ukraine, to destroy everything Ukrainian. But thanks to the help of world countries and the courage of our soldiers, we have been holding the blow for the fourth year. So, we call on the world not to stop this support, because only force can stop Putin. Ukraine is a free and democratic country on its hard way from the Russian Empire to the European Union, but we will overcome this path. We paid too big a price for our freedom to lose. Ukraine cannot lose.”