Ukrainian Anti-War Songs

I've been meaning to compile this list for a long time. With a four-year marking point of the war approaching in February 2026 and the anti-war songs in Ukrainian music ever expanding, I wanted to present an essential list of the songs I listen to frequently.

I will start out with arguably the best globally-known Ukrainian rock-band Okean Elzy. Formed in the early 1990s, it has always been distinctly Ukrainian and extremely popular in the post-Soviet space, including Russia. When the war started, the group stopped touring in Russia but despite losing that "market" still is incredibly successful, touring in Europe and Americas to raise awareness about the war and funds for the front line needs. Here's my selection of their most notable anti-war songs:

1. Obiymy (Hold Me). Strictly speaking, it was a sad love song released in 2013, before the Crimea illegal annexation. But it became prophetic as it starts out with "When the day comes and the war ends." Today it is one of the band's signature songs that became the hymn for those whom the war separated from their loved ones:

2. A recent anti-war song that needs no explanation - Voices Are Rising

3. Another recent song - Answer - seeking answers to life and war questions.

4. A recent collaboration between Okean Elzy's frontman Svyatoslav Vakarchuk & SHUMEI, representing a younger generation of Ukrainian singers - Where There Are No People. It is also an anti-war love song.

Obiymy (Hold Me) has become such a global phenomenon that many other bands have played it both live and as recorded covers. Here's one example:

5. Coldplay & Romario Punch - Hold Me - Okean Elzy Cover Live

6. It was even the subject of the newest trend - AI-generated remixes of well-known songs as if they are performed by other great bands. Here's Rammstein singing Obiymi.

There are many more great songs on Okean Elzy's YouTube Channel, if you are interested.

The second Ukrainian group I want to present is BOOMBOX - a younger band formed in 2004. It broke through Ukrainian and Russian radio hit lists with its 2005 love song Vakhteram (To Shift Workers), performed in Russian. When the war started, its frontman Andriy Khlyvnyuk joined the Ukrainian volunteer forces and recorded a Ukrainian folk song Chervona Kalyna that became an immediate global sensation. Here's one of the most viral covers of it that has the original version embedded:

7. Andriy Khlyvnyuk of BOOMBOX - Chervona Kalyna

8. Hey Hey Rise Up by Pink Floyd was another famous cover of the song.

9. I particularly like this cover by Lithuanian opera singers:

10. One of the most recent songs by BOOMBOX - Alive (It's Not Your Fault You Are Alive) - is about survivor's guilt and PTSD

11. BOOMBOX - A Note. This one is a love song, a nostalgia for peaceful times performed in the best traditions of American western rock.

12. Another prophetic song by BOOMBOX - 2021 Empires Will Fall, evoking the incident with a Ukrainian female fencer refusing to shake hands with her Russian competitor, who threw a tantrum about it.

You can also find more great songs by BOOMBOX on the band's official YouTube Channel, including collabs with other famous Ukrainian singers.

The third band, ANTYTILA, rose to fame in 2008. Here's their YouTube Channel. Its members also joined the Ukrainian volunteer forces, served several tours during the war and continue writing songs based in their lived experiences of the battles:

13. ANTYTILA - The Day The War Ends

14. ANTYTILA - Bakhmut Fortress

15. ANTYTILA - Look Into My Screen - the most recent anti-war song

The fourth group I want to present here - the folk-hiphop band Kalush Orchestra - won the 2022 Eurovision Contest with its anti-war song Stefania. This was the third Ukraine's win in Eurovision in the 21st century, an achievement that no other participating country can boast.

16. Kalush Orchestra - Stefania

The final band I selected is folk-techno group KAZKA. It broke through with its most famous song PLAKALA (CRY) in 2018, now approaching 500M views on YouTube. Kazka's female lead singer has a classical strong folk voice of a wide range. Here's one of its recent anti-war songs:

17. KAZKA - I'm Not OK

Ukrainian female pop stars are also contributing to anti-war music. Here is a very limited selection of the most well-known songs:

18. Tina Karol & Diane Warren - One Nation Under Love

19. Olya Polyakova - In Your Embrace (a song of a soldier's wife)

20. Nastya Kamenskikh - You Crying

20. Nastya Kamenskikh - I'm Ukraine

21. STASYA & XAC - That Day (When War Was Only In Movies). This collab between rising starts - a folk songstress and a rapper - has gathered 1.5 M views on YouTube in 8 months.

Finally, I want to mention two Belarusian groups that are so fiercely anti-war that they had to leave their country (Belarus' President Lukashenka completely aligned himself with Russia). They actively tour Europe and the globe in support of Ukraine as well.

22. Lyapis Trubetskoy - a punk-comic-rock group from Minsk, active in late 1990s-early 2000s. I absolutely loved their silly funny songs when I was young. They disappeared in late 2000s but reunited in 2022 to perform in support of Ukraine. Here's their song Warriors of Light:

23. B-2, the oldest alternative rock group in the Russian-language space, formed in 1988 in USSR, has produced an impressive collection of songs you can check out on their expansive YouTube channel. You may remember their detention in a Thai prison by Russia's request a couple of years ago. Thanks to the international pressure from Israel and the US, they were not extradited to Russia and released. Here's their fiercely anti-war song Don't Anger My Angels (2024) that features footage of destroyed Mariupol and portraits of killed civilians and Ukrainian children kidnapped by Russia:

There are, of course, Russian old and new groups and individual singers who are decidedly anti-war and had to leave Russia for their anti-war stance. Perhaps I will create another playlist with them in a later edition.

Thanks for enjoying this powerful music with me.