A RUSSIAN-BELARUSIAN rock band that denounces Moscow’s Ukraine invasion returned to the stage this week, voicing defiance after being detained in Thailand in January and threatened with deportation to Russia.
The band, Bi-2, formed in the 1980s in Belarus when it was part of the Soviet Union, left Russia in protest over the offensive and has been touring ever since in countries with large Russian-speaking communities.
Ahead of a concert in Vilnius on Thursday, band members met with exiled Belarusian opposition leader Svetlana Tikhanovskaya and supporters of late Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny who died in an Arctic prison last month.
“We have become hostages to Russian history,” Egor Bortnik, 51, one of the well-known band’s two founders, said ahead of another concert in Warsaw on Saturday. But Bortnik said he was “not against the war”.
“On the contrary, I’m for the war. I just want Ukraine to liberate its own territory.
“Putin has to gather his orcs and get out of Ukraine,” Bortnik said, using a disparaging term for Russian soldiers frequently used by Ukrainians.
The band was held in Phuket, Thailand in January on immigration charges in a case that has alarmed Russians critical of President Vladimir Putin living abroad.
The organisers of their concerts said all the necessary permits had been obtained, but the band was issued with tourist visas in error and they accused the Russian consulate of waging a campaign to cancel the concerts.
After a week in detention, the band were released and travelled to Israel, where they met with Foreign Minister Israel Katz who said in a statement that the episode showed that “music will win”.
Several of their concerts in Russia were cancelled in 2022 after they refused to play at a venue with banners supporting the war in Ukraine, after which they left the country. — AFP
