A displaced Ukrainian women’s choir sings in defiance of Putin

Dyvyna’s repertoire of 300 folk songs from Donetsk is an artistic refutation of Russia’s claims over Ukrainian culture

On March 20, in a park in the German city of Dusseldorf, three women holding a wind-blown yellow-and-blue Ukrainian flag sang a chant ritually performed on the day of the spring equinox that ended with an optimistic: “Sun, come out! Come out!”

According to the Qazet.az the Ukrainian women – now twice uprooted by war – make up half of Dyvyna (Miracle), a female ensemble from Donetsk, a city in eastern Ukraine that was captured by pro-Russian separatists in 2014 in a war that killed more than 13,000 people.

Since then, Russian President Vladimir Putin has accused the pro-Western government in Kyiv of “violating” the rights of the Russian-speaking population of Donetsk and neighbouring Luhansk regions, collectively known as the Donbas.

Putin partly justified the full invasion of Ukraine, launched on February 24, as a move to defend the Russian speakers in this region.