ON THE MORNING OF FEBRUARY 24, 2022, when Russian tanks crossed the Ukrainian border and headed for Kyiv, Ukrainian pop star Jerry Heil, then 26, was best known for songs that were funny and self-aware. “Okhrana Otmena,” for instance-which translates roughly as “You’re Canceled”—is about a boy who calls a girl the wrong name in bed. Other songs were about things like shopping and being a vegan.
“Now though, even when people ask me to perform my prewar stuff at concerts, I personally can’t bring myself to do it,” Heil told Newsweek in late March before a concert in the western Ukrainian city of Ivano-Frankivsk. “It’s a different time and culture has to reflect that difference. I have to reflect that difference, because I’m different now, too. I grew up a lot in the past year, right along with Ukraine itself.”
“I remember waking up about a minute before
