I came across this song by Vitaliy Aksenov, a prominent Russian singer, and I thought I'd blog about it. You'll see that the words aren't clear: Is the narrator the now-Ukrainian brother faulting his now-Russian brother? (The narrator notes that both brothers were born in Ukraine.) The now-Russian brother faulting his now-Ukrainian brother? (The references to World War II are characteristic of Russian patriotic sentiment, and the audience will know that the singer himself is Russian, not Ukrainian.) Is it deliberately noncommittal? (Though some Ukrainians at least initially supported the Nazis in World War II, millions fought against them alongside the Russians; the World War II iconography is likely to work for many in both countries.)
Is it secretly pro-Ukrainian but framed as noncommittal or pro-Russian to evade punishment by the Russian authorities? Is it something else? The one thing that does seem clear is that it's not pro-war (or, as Putin would put it, "pro-special-operation"), which seems to make it at least somewhat opposed to the official Russian position. And even if it is intended by the author to support the Russian side, it seems to me that its lyrics work at least as well (indeed, much better) from the Ukrainian perspective.
