Death Pill: The Ukrainian female punk trio separated by Russia’s war – ‘I don’t choose to live in a horror film’

Published

3 years ago

December 28, 2022

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From a music club sheltered underground in Ukraine’s capital, Mariana Navrotskaya cannot hear the air raid warnings sounding above her. It is her bandmate Anastasiia Khomenko who informs her after checking online that there is a nationwide warning in effect at the time of their Zoom call.

“It is very good you are in a shelter,” she tells her friend, concerned but not shocked by what is happening in her home country anymore. “It is my every day,” Mariana replies.

It’s 2pm in Kiev, 1pm for Anastasiia, now living in Barcelona, and 10.30pm for the third member of their trio, Nataliia Seryakova, who is currently in Adelaide, south Australia.

Across the time zones, thousands of miles apart, the three members of feminist punk trio Death Pill have reunited for their first UK news interview – which just happens to be, it turns out, also the first time all three have seen each other together, albeit on screen, since they were separated shortly after the start of Russia‘s war on Ukraine 10 months ago.

While Nataliia, 25, was able to move temporarily to Australia for work, Mariana, 26, chose to stay in Kyiv. Anastasiia, 29, made the difficult decision to take her son Orest, who turned eight in November, to safety in Spain; leaving her husband Evgenij behind.

“When the war began, I didn’t want to leave Kyiv,” she tells Sky News. “But I know that I must because I have a child and I want him to be safe and have a better life.

“Every time when I think about children in the Ukraine, it’s very painful for me. They have air alerts, they’re [having to go] down in the shelters… it was a very difficult decision. I didn’t want to emigrate. I love my country very badly.”

A hardcore punk trio, Death Pill in its current line-up began in 2021, when bass player Nataliia joined. Emerging from Ukraine’s diverse underground music scene, they recorded their self-titled debut album and were ready to take on the world.

“After all, rock is not only about brutal men with curly long hair, right?” states Mariana in their promo.

But then the war broke out. For the first month, Anastasiia and her family slept in their bathroom, the safest place. Now, she is separated from her husband and parents – her father is fighting for Ukraine – and she and her bandmates are spread across the world.

Despite the distance, they have managed to put the finishing touches to their album online since they have been apart.

Their releases so far have started creating buzz and they have been named among the 10 exciting new bands to watch out for in 2023 by Metal Hammer. Signed to London label New Heavy Sounds, the plan is to release it on 24 February 2023 – marking the first anniversary of the start of the war – and they are all hopeful that one day, hopefully soon, they will get to tour together.

While it was never meant to be this way, the aim now is to use their platform to keep raising awareness about what is happening in Ukraine.

“Right now we have a dream team, our golden trio,” says Anastasiia. “We’ve played in a lot of Ukrainian cities… now we have a lot of attention from Europe, America. And we appreciate that because we can spread the word about the war.

“We can share all this information from the people who are actually living this and going through it… we were waking up on 24 February from missile strikes. It’s not propaganda, it’s real life.”

‘A year ago, we had it all’

In recent months, Russia launched attacks on power supplies, causing blackouts across Ukraine. It is the reason Mariana has placed herself in the music club, which has a generator, for this interview; she is not able to communicate from her home.

Despite everything, she is resilient. “It’s making me stronger and more powerful,” she says. “You can’t imagine this situation at all. At all.

“It’s a lot of hard work living now in Ukraine – in Kyiv, in any other city – because you need to find electricity, internet, water.

“One year ago, you have it all and you don’t think about it. And now… when you read the history of World War II, you think that’s very bad, but now is another time, it will never happen again… I can’t find the words to explain. It’s f***** up.

“But now, it’s very interesting to live here because you understand the importance of everything that you [thought] was…”

“Basic,” Anastasiia answers for her. They now appreciate the everyday things they took for granted.

Nataliia and Anastasiia tell their bandmate they think she is more positive now than before the war.

“I’m going through big changes, and that’s cool,” she replies. “You see how strong Ukrainians are?” Anastasiia says about her friend.

But they miss each other. Brought together by a mutual desire to make music with something to say, to stand out from the crowd, they are desperate to see each other in person once again.

I ask how they are feeling about not being able to play together at the moment. “You want to see our tears?” Mariana responds. “It’s a very sad question.”

“It’s s***,” says Nataliia. “You can’t plan. So I just know, like, half a year forward what I can do. But after that, I don’t know. It’s slow, but it’s as good as we can do. It is what it is.”

‘We smash the patriarchy, now we smash Russia’

One positive to emerge from the war is the underground music community coming together to support their country.

“Because we have a lot of people who are artists, musicians, great people of our nation [who] are now with weapons protecting their country, to protect all Europe,” says Anastasiia.

Nataliia says Russian artists with any sort of platform, those who are elsewhere in the world and able to see what is really happening – rather than the “propaganda” – should also be standing up for Ukraine.

“Even a lot of famous artists from Russia say nothing about it, and this is s***,” she says. “[People say] they were just born in Russia, but they have mouths to speak.”

She says she has lost contact with some of her own family members in Russia as they do not believe the truth about what is happening in Ukraine.

“When the war started… there were a lot of explosions not far from me,” she says. “I saw explosions in the window, it was like five kilometres from my house.”

Russia has “taken everything” from us, says Anastasiia. “I miss being carefree because I don’t have it anymore. When I see [in Spain] a lot of people, they are so happy, carefree. I’m very glad for every one of them, and for you that you never, ever have what we have in our life.

“But in another way I feel very angry because we also had this in our life. We also were carefree and did silly things and were just hanging out together and [making] music in Ukraine. And now people in Ukraine need just to survive…

“For all people who are supporting Russian terrorists, I want them to see how it is. I want them to open their eyes, in a horrible way. It’s true and it’s our life. We don’t want it and we don’t deserve it.”

Having travelled back to Ukraine in the summer to see her husband, Anastasiia has plans to do so again next year. “I will see Mariana,” she says. “We will play together, maybe do some songs.”

“We smashed the patriarchy together and now we smash Russia together,” says Mariana.

“Right now for us, it’s our life,” says Anastasiia. “For me, it’s like I’m living in a movie. But I don’t choose to live in a horror film. I want a movie where we are rock stars.”

Death Pill release their self-titled debut album through London label New Heavy Sounds on 24 February 2023

World

Mile after mile of grey rubble – the view from a plane dropping aid to Gaza

Published

8 hours ago

July 29, 2025

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Mile after mile of grey rubble - the view from a plane dropping aid to Gaza

We are on our way to Gaza with the Jordanian military.

The aircraft is hot and noisy and as we get closer, the atmosphere gets more tense. Aircrew gesture with their hands to tell us how many minutes there are to go. Fifteen. Six. One.

The Jordanian military C-130 flies out over the sea before banking and heading inland for Gaza. The parachutes, attached to the top of each of the eight pallets, are prepared for the drop.

As land approaches, I look down. The ground is modern and built up – we’re still over southern Israel.

Then a few short minutes later, it’s clear we’ve crossed Gaza’s border.

The ground turns grey, the shapes of buildings disappear, there are no cars, no people.

You can see the outline of communities and villages that are now flattened. Mile after mile of grey rubble.

This mission by the Royal Jordanian Air Force is one of the first aid drop flights since Israel announced they could resume. It is carrying eight tonnes of food and baby formula.

Foreign nations know this is a deeply flawed way of delivering aid – road convoys are far more effective and can carry far more – but the Jordanian flight crew say the need in Gaza is so urgent, it’s simply an attempt to do something.

When the aircraft ramp opens, the aid is pushed out and it’s gone in seconds.

The parachutes seem peaceful as they open and their fall slows. But dropping food from the sky is a dangerous and undignified way to feed people.

On the ground it’s chaos.

Our colleagues in Gaza say the fighting for food has become lethal – gangs are now punching and stabbing people to reach it first. Most critically, it’s not getting to the weakest. To those who really need it.

One man becomes emotional as he describes racing to find food and leaving with nothing.

“I came only for my son,” he says. “I wouldn’t come here if it was just for me. When you have a child, they need bread.”

He’s an engineer in normal times and seems in disbelief that his life has come to this. “The aid comes from the sky and we have to run after it. I’ve never had to do this in my life.”

It is hoped Israel’s humanitarian pauses in fighting will rapidly increase food distribution by road but it’s very unclear how that is going.

Hospitals in Gaza have reported another 14 deaths from starvation in the last 24 hours, the Gaza health ministry said on Monday.

Airstrikes killed another at least 78 Palestinians across Gaza on Monday, local health officials said.

We cannot verify these numbers because Israel has not allowed international journalists access to Gaza.

And Monday’s flight came with strict media conditions.

We were told the Israeli side had warned that any shots of Gaza filmed from the air could result in these aid flights being cancelled.

But Israel’s tight grip has not stopped the images from Gaza getting out, horrifying people around the world.

The question now is what more the international community will do about it.

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Israeli human rights organisations accuse country of genocide

Published

11 hours ago

July 28, 2025

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Israeli human rights organisations accuse country of genocide

Two Israeli human rights organisations have said the country is committing genocide against Palestinians in Gaza.

In reports published on Monday, B’Tselem and Physicians for Human Rights (PHR) said Israel was carrying out “coordinated, deliberate action to destroy Palestinian society in the Gaza Strip”.

The two groups are the first major voices within Israeli society to make such accusations against the state during nearly 22 months of war against Hamas.

Israel has vehemently denied claims of genocide. David Mencer, a spokesperson for the government, called the allegation by the rights groups “baseless”.

He said: “There is no intent, (which is) key for the charge of genocide… it simply doesn’t make sense for a country to send in 1.9 million tonnes of aid, most of that being food, if there is an intent of genocide.”

B’Tselem director Yuli Novak called for urgent action, saying: “What we see is a clear, intentional attack on civilians in order to destroy a group.”

The organisation’s report “is one we never imagined we would have to write,” Ms Novak said. “The people of Gaza have been displaced, bombed, and starved, left completely stripped of their humanity and rights.”

PHR said Israel’s military campaign shows evidence of a “deliberate and systemic dismantling of Gaza’s health and life-sustaining systems”.

Both organisations said Israel’s Western allies were enabling the genocidal campaign, and shared responsibility for suffering in Gaza.

“It couldn’t happen without the support of the Western world,” Ms Novak said. “Any leader that is not doing whatever they can to stop it is part of this horror.”

Hamas said the reports by the two groups were a “clear and unambiguous testimony from within Israeli society itself regarding the grave crimes perpetrated by the occupation regime against our people”.

Dire humanitarian conditions

Since Israel launched its offensive in Gaza following the deadly Hamas attack on 7 October 2023, nearly 60,000 people – mostly civilians – have been killed, according to Gaza health officials.

Much of the infrastructure has been destroyed, and nearly the whole population of more than two million has been displaced.

An increasing number of people in Gaza are also dying from starvation and malnutrition, according to Gaza health authorities.

On Monday, the Gaza health ministry reported that at least 14 people had died from starvation and malnutrition in the past 24 hours, raising the total number of hunger-related deaths during the war to 147.

Among the victims were 88 children, with most of the deaths occurring in recent weeks.

UN agencies say the territory is running out of food for its people and accuse Israel of not allowing enough aid deliveries to the enclave. Israel denies those claims.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday said “there is no starvation in Gaza” and vowed to fight on against Hamas.

US President Donald Trump said on Monday that many in Gaza are facing starvation and implied that Israel could take further steps to improve humanitarian access.

Israel has repeatedly said its actions in Gaza are in self-defence, placing full responsibility for civilian casualties on Hamas. It cites the militant group’s refusal to release hostages, surrender, or stop operating within civilian areas – allegations that Hamas denies.

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Why are airdrops on Gaza so dangerous?

Published

20 hours ago

July 28, 2025

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The United Nations has condemned airdrops on Gaza, warning they risk killing the starving Palestinians they are intended to help.

Jordan, the United Arab Emirates, and Israel parachuted aid packages into the territory for the first time in months at the weekend amid claims a third of the population has not eaten for days.

But Philippe Lazzarini, commissioner-general for the UN Relief and Work Agency for Palestinian Refugees (UNRWA), has said they “will not reverse the deepening starvation” and often do more harm than good.

‘Make or break’ as starvation looms; Middle East latest

“They are expensive, inefficient & can even kill starving civilians,” he wrote in a statement on X.

What is an airdrop – and why are they dangerous?

There are several ways humanitarian agencies and international allies can deliver aid to regions in need – by land, by sea, or by air.

While parachuting in supply packages from planes may look impressive, airdrops are “fraught with problems”, Sky correspondent in Jordan Sally Lockwood says, and often used as a “desperate last resort”.

“Foreign nations know airdrops are a deeply flawed way of delivering aid,” she says.

“Palestinian sources tell us the aid that’s been dropped so far is not reaching the most vulnerable. They are an attempt to get something to a few – often viewed as a desperate last resort. Gaza is at that point.”

Military analyst Sean Bell says that delivering aid by air is ideally done when planes can land on a runway – but Gaza’s only landing strip in Rafah was shut down in 2021.

The alternative is “very dangerous”, he warns. “Aircraft flying relatively low and slow over a warzone isn’t very clever. When these parcels hit the ground, there’s a significant danger of them hitting people.”

Crucially, they can only deliver a fraction of what lorries can.

“The really big issue is aircraft can only deliver one truckload of aid. Gaza needs 500 truckloads a day, so it’s 0.2% of the daily need,” Bell adds.

They also risk falling into the wrong hands and ending up on the black market.

“Some of it has been looted by gangs and is on the black market already,” Lockwood says.

Why are they happening now?

Israel cut off all supplies to Gaza at the beginning of March, reopening some aid centres in May, but with restrictions they said were designed to stop goods being stolen by Hamas militants.

Israeli authorities control the only three border crossings to the strip: Kerem Shalom in the south, Crossing 147 in the centre, and Erez to the north.

Since the current conflict with Hamas began in October 2023, humanitarian agencies and world leaders have repeatedly accused Israel of not allowing enough deliveries through.

Mr Lazzarini says the UN has “the equivalent of 6,000 trucks” in neighbouring Jordan and Egypt “waiting for the green light to get into Gaza”.

Israel says it has commissioned a “one-week scale-up of aid”, having conducted its own airdrops on Saturday.

In a statement over the weekend, the Israeli Defence Forces said it will work with the UN and other aid organisations to ensure aid is delivered but no more details were given.

Meanwhile on Sunday, it began daily 10-hour pauses in fighting in three areas of Gaza to address the deteriorating humanitarian situation.

According to the Hamas-run health ministry, 133 Palestinians had died of malnutrition by then, including 87 children.

Doctors Without Borders warned on Friday that 25% of young children and pregnant women in Gaza are malnourished.

Israel says there is no famine in Gaza.

What are in the airdrops and who is behind them?

Air packages are largely being delivered by C-130 planes. Jordan is reported to be using 10 and the UAE eight.

They can carry eight pallets of goods each, weighing around eight tonnes in total, according to Lockwood, who is on the runway at Jordan’s King Abdullah II airbase.

There are no medical supplies in the packages, she says, only dried food, rice, flour, and baby formula.

Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer has said the UK will help with airdrops – but no British aircraft have been seen in Jordan so far.

He will discuss the matter with US President Donald Trump during talks in Scotland on Monday.

The RAF delivered 110 tonnes of aid across 10 drops last year as part of a Jordanian-led international coalition – but it is not clear what level of support will be offered this time.