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VIDEO/ Antony Blinken gives a rock performance from a bar in Kiev! (WAR WITH RUSSIA)

2024-05-15 12:02:42Kosova&Bota SHKRUAR NGA REDAKSIA VOX
VIDEO/ Antony Blinken gives a rock performance from a bar in Kiev! (WAR WITH
Antony Blinken

It was an unexpected moment at the end of a long day in Kiev for Antony Blinken , after numerous high-level meetings and serious statements promising the rapid delivery of US military aid.

The Secretary of State picked up a guitar and performed a rendition of Neil Young's Rockin' in the Free world with a Ukrainian rock band.

The images, quickly shared on social media, divided opinion in Ukraine, with some hailing them as a welcome gesture of support and others questioning the optics of performing in a bar when the situation on the front is so tense.

Blinken took the stage at Barman Dictat, a well-known speakeasy-style bar in central Kyiv hidden in a basement within a courtyard, and joined Ukrainian band 19.99.

"Your soldiers, your citizens, especially in the north-east, in Kharkiv, are suffering tremendously," Blinken said before playing. "But they should know, you should know, the United States is with you, more so, the world is with you and they are fighting not only for a free Ukraine, but for the free world. And the free world is with you too.”

The group was told before the event that they would be performing with Neil Young, one member said, but was asked to keep it a secret. Only at the last minute did they realize that their guest member would be the Secretary of State.

The band's guitarist Arsen Gorbach told BBC Radio 4 on Wednesday that the song choice had come from Blinken and described the performance as " a very important point in Ukrainian history and culture".

Others weren't so sure, with a flurry of criticism in some quarters about the propriety of playing in a bar, while the frontline situation has worsened in recent days.

A Russian offensive around the Kharkiv region has complicated an already tense situation, with Ukrainian troops withdrawing from several villages and intense fighting around the city of Vovchansk. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has canceled all visits.

"The Kharkiv region is being wiped out, people are leaving their homes, Kharkiv is under attack from aerial bombs. The Sumy region is preparing and a high-ranking US official is singing songs in a bar in Kiev ," wrote the head of a Ukrainian NGO on Facebook.

The song, written in 1989 just before the fall of the Berlin Wall, has become an anthem of overcoming repression.


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