May 14, 2023

Imagine Dragons Shows Reality in Ukraine


Imagine Dragons Shows Reality in Ukraine
A Ukrainian fourteen-year-old stands in a room wrecked by explosions. ImagineDragons, Youtube.

The American pop-rock band Imagine Dragons filmed the video clip for their song "Crushed" in Ukraine to help fundraise for United24, the official fundraising platform for Ukraine founded by President Volodymyr Zelenzky. The film follows the true story of Sasha, a fourteen-year-old from Mykolayiv Oblast, whose village was occupied by the Russian army for five months and barely survived.

The short film (embedded below) tells us Sasha's survival story as he walks through the rubble of what was once his hometown. Over a period of five months, his town endured constant shelling by Russian forces. Sasha survived by hiding underground in a bunker, but all his neighbors died. His family lost everything. The firmest structures left on the ground are encrusted missiles.

According to Rolling Stone, the director of the video, Ty Arnold, was delivering medical aid to people in Ukraine when he met the teenager. After hearing his story, Arthur partnered with Imagine Dragons, an ambassador for United24 since July 2022, to shoot the music video. The band wanted to show the reality and trauma that everyday Ukrainians experience due to the war.

All funds from the video will be directed toward rebuilding Ukraine. On their Twitter blog, Imagine Dragons strongly encouraged donating to the following link

You Might Also Like

Anything to Stop The Show
  • April 04, 2023

Anything to Stop The Show

Moscow police attempted to interrupt an anti-war pianist's concert, going so far as to call in a bomb threat.
Concert Confusion
  • March 29, 2023

Concert Confusion

A popular singer's concerts have been canceled after being blacklisted by Russia.
Flowers for Dnipro
  • January 22, 2023

Flowers for Dnipro

Russians across the country spontaneously mourned the victims of their country's January 14 missile attack on Dnipro, Ukraine, which crushed an apartment building.
What Is Born from Fire
  • December 12, 2022

What Is Born from Fire

Russian singer Monetochka released a music video on YouTube criticizing pro-government propaganda on television.
Like this post? Get a weekly email digest + member-only deals

Some of Our Books

Bears in the Caviar

Bears in the Caviar

Bears in the Caviar is a hilarious and insightful memoir by a diplomat who was “present at the creation” of US-Soviet relations. Charles Thayer headed off to Russia in 1933, calculating that if he could just learn Russian and be on the spot when the US and USSR established relations, he could make himself indispensable and start a career in the foreign service. Remarkably, he pulled it of.
Dostoyevsky Bilingual

Dostoyevsky Bilingual

Bilingual series of short, lesser known, but highly significant works that show the traditional view of Dostoyevsky as a dour, intense, philosophical writer to be unnecessarily one-sided. 
The Frogs Who Begged for a Tsar (bilingual)

The Frogs Who Begged for a Tsar (bilingual)

The fables of Ivan Krylov are rich fonts of Russian cultural wisdom and experience – reading and understanding them is vital to grasping the Russian worldview. This new edition of 62 of Krylov’s tales presents them side-by-side in English and Russian. The wonderfully lyrical translations by Lydia Razran Stone are accompanied by original, whimsical color illustrations by Katya Korobkina.
Chekhov Bilingual

Chekhov Bilingual

Some of Chekhov's most beloved stories, with English and accented Russian on facing pages throughout. 
Jews in Service to the Tsar

Jews in Service to the Tsar

Benjamin Disraeli advised, “Read no history: nothing but biography, for that is life without theory.” With Jews in Service to the Tsar, Lev Berdnikov offers us 28 biographies spanning five centuries of Russian Jewish history, and each portrait opens a new window onto the history of Eastern Europe’s Jews, illuminating dark corners and challenging widely-held conceptions about the role of Jews in Russian history.
93 Untranslatable Russian Words

93 Untranslatable Russian Words

Every language has concepts, ideas, words and idioms that are nearly impossible to translate into another language. This book looks at nearly 100 such Russian words and offers paths to their understanding and translation by way of examples from literature and everyday life. Difficult to translate words and concepts are introduced with dictionary definitions, then elucidated with citations from literature, speech and prose, helping the student of Russian comprehend the word/concept in context.
Russian Rules

Russian Rules

From the shores of the White Sea to Moscow and the Northern Caucasus, Russian Rules is a high-speed thriller based on actual events, terrifying possibilities, and some really stupid decisions.
Survival Russian

Survival Russian

Survival Russian is an intensely practical guide to conversational, colloquial and culture-rich Russian. It uses humor, current events and thematically-driven essays to deepen readers’ understanding of Russian language and culture. This enlarged Second Edition of Survival Russian includes over 90 essays and illuminates over 2000 invaluable Russian phrases and words.
Woe From Wit (bilingual)

Woe From Wit (bilingual)

One of the most famous works of Russian literature, the four-act comedy in verse Woe from Wit skewers staid, nineteenth century Russian society, and it positively teems with “winged phrases” that are essential colloquialisms for students of Russian and Russian culture.
Tolstoy Bilingual

Tolstoy Bilingual

This compact, yet surprisingly broad look at the life and work of Tolstoy spans from one of his earliest stories to one of his last, looking at works that made him famous and others that made him notorious. 
A Taste of Russia

A Taste of Russia

The definitive modern cookbook on Russian cuisine has been totally updated and redesigned in a 30th Anniversary Edition. Layering superbly researched recipes with informative essays on the dishes' rich historical and cultural context, A Taste of Russia includes over 200 recipes on everything from borshch to blini, from Salmon Coulibiac to Beef Stew with Rum, from Marinated Mushrooms to Walnut-honey Filled Pies. A Taste of Russia shows off the best that Russian cooking has to offer. Full of great quotes from Russian literature about Russian food and designed in a convenient wide format that stays open during use.

About Us

Russian Life is a publication of a 30-year-young, award-winning publishing house that creates a bimonthly magazine, books, maps, and other products for Russophiles the world over.

Latest Posts

Our Contacts

Russian Life
73 Main Street, Suite 402
Montpelier VT 05602

802-223-4955