U2 have shared a message and piano piece in support of Ukraine and President Zelenskyy to mark the third anniversary of Russia’s invasion.
Today (February 24) marks three years since Russia launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022.
European leaders are currently in talks with Zelenskyy on an end to the conflict, after the president said he is willing to step down in exchange for Nato membership for his country.
His comments come in the wake of the largest single drone attack of the war, as Ukrainian officials say 267 were launched into the country last night (February 23), resulting in casualties.
Now, U2 have commemorated the war entering its fourth year with a reading of ‘My Friendly Epistle’ by the 19th century poet Taras Shevchenko accompanied by a piano piece. In a post shared to Instagram, Bono said that he and The Edge initially sent the recording to Zelenskyy in 2022, shortly after the initial invasion.
“All who believe in freedom and sense the jeopardy we Europeans now find ourselves in are not sleeping easily on this, the third anniversary of the invasion,” he wrote in the caption. “More to say about this and other bewilderments later.” See it below.
It comes after US President Donald Trump called Zelenskyy a “dictator without elections” last week. Zelensky was democratically elected in 2019 and, according to Ukranian law, elections are currently suspended under martial law, which has been in place since the war began in 2022.
Trump has faced backlash from world leaders for excluding Ukraine from talks after his aides met with Russian officials in Saudi Arabia last week.
Earlier this year, Bono shared his thoughts on the best way to achieve freedom “in every part of the world where health and humanity are at risk”.
The U2 frontman expressed his outlook during a new op-ed for The Atlantic, which he wrote ahead of receiving the Presidential Medal of Freedom in the US in January.
The title is the nation’s highest civilian honour and is awarded to people who “have made exemplary contributions to the prosperity, values or security of the United States, world peace or other significant societal, public or private endeavours”. Bono received it this year from Joe Biden for his work as “a pioneering activist against AIDS and poverty”. Other recipients included Michael J. Fox, Denzel Washington and more.
In his piece for The Atlantic, Bono centred his discussion on “freedom”, and how it has meant different things across time and across nations. One of the main topics he focused on was how the need for freedom has been expressed continuously in music.
“When we rock stars talk about freedom, we more often mean libertinism than liberation, but growing up in the Ireland of the ’60s, that had its place too. We were mad for freedoms we didn’t have: political freedom, religious freedom, and (most definitely) sexual freedom,” he wrote.
“Rock and roll promised a freedom that could not be contained or silenced, an international language of liberation […] In U2, we wanted our song ‘Pride (In the Name of Love)’ to sound like the freedom we were campaigning for in our work with Amnesty International. That’s how insufferable we were.”
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