«Undervud» (Ундервуд) is a Russian rock band formed in 1995 in Simferopol, Crimea. The collective launched an intensive recording and touring career after relocating to Moscow in 2000. The band's frontmen and vocalists are Vladimir Tkachenko (born November 10, 1972, in Kherson, Ukraine) and Maksim Kucherenko (born July 26, 1972, in Simferopol, Crimea).
The band collaborates with Russian record labels, the taxes from which flow directly into the budget of the Russian Federation, indirectly financing the war against Ukraine.
! Listening to the tracks of this artist on Apple Music, Spotify, YouTube Music, and social media platforms helps sponsor the war.
Following the 2014 annexation of Crimea, the musicians refused to directly answer whose Crimea is, yet commented on the situation as follows:
Vladimir Tkachenko: «Crimeans voted the way they deemed necessary. That is precisely why turnout was so high. I consider this referendum a historic milestone. Geopolitically as well as socio-economically, Crimea has always been more intimately tied to Russia and the Russian language. That is indisputable. So this is the choice of the people of Crimea, rather than a choice made by Russian or Ukrainian authorities.
Maksim Kucherenko: «Regarding this question, my 82-year-old aunt, for example, treats it with irony, saying, 'We fell asleep in Russia and woke up in Ukraine.' When Crimea began impoverishing in the early 2000s while Russia entered economic growth, everyone started thinking. I myself realized at a certain point that at my 28 years of age, one needed to relocate to where there was real momentum.
Furthermore, the band Undervud repeatedly performed in occupied Crimea, which subsequently led to legal entry restrictions and bans into mainland Ukraine.
The Band Undervud’s Position on the War in Ukraine
Following Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the band members never spoke out openly about the war. On February 24, 2022, the group published an Instagram post announcing the postponement of their concert in Krasnodar "due to temporary suspension of air travel." Apparently, in their eyes, "nothing else of significance" occurred on that catastrophic day.
In the summer of 2022, Maksim Kucherenko took part in recording the song and music video «Ya ostayus» (I'm Staying), framed as a nationalist rebuke to all artists who fled Russia. That patriotic recording involved musicians such as Sergey Shnurov ("Leningrad"), Vladimir Shakhrin ("Chaif"), Aleksandr F. Sklyar ("Va-Bank"), Oleg Garkusha ("Auktyon"), Sergey Galanin ("SerGa"), Sergey ‘Chizh’ Chigrakov ("Chizh & Co"), Evgeny Margulis ("Voskreseniye", "Mashina Vremeni"), Andrey Knyazev ("KnyaZz", "Korol i Shut"), Aya ("Gorod 312"), Masha Makarova ("Masha i Medvedi"), Vladimir and Sergey Kristovsky ("Uma2rmaH"), Svetlana Surganova, and others.
In the summer of 2023, they performed at the «Uletay» rock festival alongside staunchly pro-Putin acts such as «Pilot» and «Alisa».
The band «Undervud» continues to tour across Russia, playing clubs and festivals, funneling blood-stained rubles into the budget of the Russian Federation.
Concerts in Occupied Territories
The musicians regularly travel to stage concerts in Russian-occupied Simferopol, Sevastopol, and Yalta, which constitutes a direct violation of international law and Ukrainian legislation, and functions as an intentional legitimization of Russia's illegal occupation of Crimea.
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