FORT WAYNE, Ind. (WANE) – As bombs fall on Ukraine’s capital Kyiv, a musician linked to Sweetwater reports from there and continues to play music as the invasion continues.
Serge Tiagnyriadno, with Chicago cover band Leonid and Friends, toured 60 cities across the United States last fall.
Today, he defends his city and the subject of the Facebook page “We Stand with Serge and Ukraine!”
A song he wrote “Prayer for the dying… Glory to Ukraine!” garnered some 6,000 views on the page.
On October 27, Sweetwater Founder and Chairman Chuck Surack performed with his band, Sweetwater All Stars, as a backup band when the band performed at the Clyde Theatre.
“I love the band,” Surack said in a phone interview Thursday. “I’ve seen them several times.”
Surack said he read most of their Facebook posts, but was unaware of Tiagnyriadno’s role in defending Kyiv. Nevertheless, Surack described the situation in Ukraine as “horrible”.
Tiagnyriadno speaks through a Chicago financier, Scott Bauer, and reports that the Russian military has been indiscriminate in its bombardment. “They bomb left and right, everything they see. The Ukrainian military has done a masterful job, but at some point they will be outnumbered,” Bauer said.
Earlier Thursday morning, Tiagnyriadno was nearly called to the small town of Ivankiv, now under Russian control. Heavy shelling reportedly destroyed the Ivankiv History and Local History Museum where works by artist Maria Prymachenko were on display, Bauer reported.
Tiagnyriadno’s fellow musicians are based in Moscow and are Russian.
“I talk to other musicians in Moscow,” Bauer said. “They can’t stand what’s going on. I spoke to them 24 hours a day.”
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