Serhij Zhadan goes into military service
Image: Elena Ternovaja, CC BY-SA 3.0
Serhij Zhadan has been a member of the Chartia Battalion of the Ukrainian National Guard since April 2024. He had already been actively involved in supplying this unit as a volunteer. The battalion was founded as a volunteer organization shortly after the Russian invasion and took part in the successful Ukrainian counter-offensive in autumn 2022, being one of the first units to advance to the Russian border.
Zhadan had already canceled all of his rock band’s planned dates in Europe and the USA at the beginning of the year. In 2023, he was still often performing on stage abroad. He justified the cancellation of the concerts by saying that he was tired of explaining in Berlin or London that the aggressor was the aggressor, the occupier the occupier and that the Ukrainians had a right to their own survival.
He announced his entry into military service with the words that today there is no difference between artists and non-artists. There are only Ukrainian citizens who take “responsibility for their country” and those who avoid this responsibility.
