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

Published

2 years ago

December 28, 2022

admin

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

Even after US strikes, Iran may still have the ability to make a nuclear bomb

Published

56 mins ago

June 23, 2025

admin

Even after US strikes, Iran may still have the ability to make a nuclear bomb

It would be sensible to wait until the dust has settled before judging whether the US strikes on Iran were, in Donald Trump’s, words, “a spectacular military success”.

And when dropping bombs that weigh more than 13 tonnes each, there’s going to be a lot of dust.

The Pentagon says the operation against Iran’s three largest nuclear facilities involved 125 military aircraft, warships and submarines, including the largest operational strike by B2 bombers in history.

Follow latest: Iran considering ‘all options’ after US strikes

The B-2s dropped 14 of America’s most powerful GBU-57 “bunker buster” bombs on the Natanz uranium enrichment plant and Iran’s most sophisticated nuclear facility at Fordow.

The first time, according to the Pentagon, the weapons have been used in a military operation.

The Fordow complex, buried deep in a mountain, was the only site not previously damaged by Israeli strikes over the last few days.

The use of multiple GBU-57 bombs at Fordow is telling.

Despite their size, it was known that one of them would be insufficient to penetrate 80+ metres of solid rock believed to shelter Iran’s most sophisticated uranium enrichment technology deep within Fordow.

Satellite images reveal three visible holes at two different strike points on the mountainside above the complex.

The sites appear to be close to what may have been ventilation shafts – possibly chosen to maximise damage below and render the facility useless.

Using several of the bombs in the same location is likely designed to allow each to penetrate further than the first before detonating.

If nuclear facilities at Isfahan, Natanz and Fordow were destroyed – as the US claims – or even crippled, it would certainly halt Iran’s ability to enrich the Uranium needed to make a viable nuclear weapon.

But that’s not the same as preventing Iran’s ability to make a nuclear bomb. To do that, they need “weapons-grade” uranium; the necessary metal-shaping, explosives and timing technology needed to trigger nuclear fission in the bomb; and a mechanism for delivering it.

The facilities targeted in the US raid are dedicated to achieving the first objective. Taking naturally occurring uranium ore, which contains around 0.7% uranium 235 – the isotope needed for nuclear fission – and concentrating it.

The centrifuges you hear about are the tools needed to enrich U-235 to the 90% purity needed for a compact “implosion”-type warhead that can be delivered by a missile.

And the reality is Iran’s centrifuges have been spinning for a long time.

United Nations nuclear inspectors warned in May that Iran had at least 408kg of uranium “enriched” to 60%.

Getting to that level represents 90% of the time and effort to get to 90% U-235. And those 400kg would yield enough of that weapons-grade uranium to make nine nuclear weapons, the inspectors concluded.

The second element is something Iran has also been working on for two decades.

Precisely shaping uranium metal and making shaped explosive charges to crush it in the right way to achieve “criticality”, the spark for the sub-atomic chain reaction that releases the terrifying energy in a nuclear explosion.

In its recent bombing campaign, Israel is thought to have targeted facilities where Iranian nuclear scientists were doing some of that work.

Analysis on the US strikes:
Trump’s two big gambles as US enters war with Iran
For Trump, the performative presidency just got real

But unlike the industrial processes needed to enrich uranium, these later steps can be carried out in laboratory-sized facilities. Easier to pack up and move, and easier to hide from prying eyes.

Given that it’s understood Iran already moved enriched uranium out of Fordow ahead of the US strike, it’s far from certain that Iran has, in fact, lost its ability to make a bomb.

And while the strikes may have delayed the logistics, it’s possible they’ve emboldened a threatened Iran to intensify its warhead-making capability if it does still have one.

Making a more compact implosion-based warhead is not easy. There is debate among experts about how advanced Iran is along that road.

But if it felt sufficiently motivated, it does have other, less sophisticated nuclear options.

Even 60% enriched uranium, of which – remember – it has a lot, can be coaxed to criticality in a much larger, cruder nuclear device.

This wouldn’t pose as much threat to its enemies, as it would be too heavy to fit on even the best of Iran’s long-range missiles.

But it would, nonetheless, elevate Iran to the status of a nuclear power.

World

Isfahan, Natanz and Fordow: What we know about Operation Midnight Hammer as US strikes Iran’s nuclear facilities

Published

56 mins ago

June 23, 2025

admin

Isfahan, Natanz and Fordow: What we know about Operation Midnight Hammer as US strikes Iran's nuclear facilities

Details are emerging about the US strikes against Iran’s nuclear facilities.

The US military has provided details about which sites have been hit and what military elements have been used, as President Donald Trump hailed the attack on social media.

From the number of bunker buster bombs dropped to where they hit, here’s what we know so far.

Follow latest: US bombers strike three Iranian nuclear sites

How did ‘Operation Midnight Hammer’ unfold?

The US’s most senior military official gave details of how the attack, named Operation Midnight Hammer, unfolded.

General Dan Caine, chairman of the US joint chiefs of staff, said that at midnight on Friday, a large “B-2 strike package of bombers” launched from the US, flying east across the Atlantic.

To maintain the element of surprise, some other bombers flew west into the Pacific.

During the 18-hour flight, the planes underwent multiple rounds of refuelling.

As the seven B-2 bombers entered Iran, the US deployed “several decoys”, according to Gen Caine, and a US submarine launched more than two dozen Tomahawk cruise missiles at the Isfahan nuclear site.

At around 6.40pm EST on Saturday, the first B-2 bomber dropped two GBU 57 Massive Ordnance Penetrator weapons, known as bunker buster bombs, on Fordow.

“The remaining bombers then hit their targets,” said Gen Caine, with 14 GBU-57s dropped in total.

Bunker buster bombs are designed to explode twice. Once to breach the ground surface, and again, once the bomb has burrowed down to a certain depth.

Israel has bunker busters in its arsenal but does not have the much more powerful GBU-57, which can only be launched from the B-2 bomber and was believed to be the only bomb capable of breaching Fordow.

This attack was the GBU-57s’ first operational use.

More than 75 weapons were used in total, including 14 30,000lb GBU-57 bunker buster bombs, and 125 aircraft took part.

The New York Times reported a US official as saying a B-2 also dropped two of the GBU-57s on the Natanz nuclear site.

The B-2s were all heading back towards the US by 7.05pm (EST), Gen Caine added, and he said the US military were not aware of any shots fired at the American jets by Iranian aircraft or air defences on the ground.

Which sites were hit?

America says it has hit the three key locations in Iran’s nuclear programme.

They include Isfahan, the location of a significant research base, as well as uranium enrichment facilities at Natanz and Fordow.

Natanz was believed to have been previously damaged in Israeli strikes after bombs disrupted power to the centrifuge hall, possibly destroying the machines indirectly.

Details about the damage in the US strikes are not yet known, although Mr Trump said the three sites had been “obliterated”.

The US secretary of defence Pete Hegseth said the US had “devastated the Iranian nuclear programme”.

However, most of the highly enriched uranium at the Fordow nuclear facility was moved to an undisclosed location ahead of the attack, a senior Iranian source told the Reuters news agency.

Personnel numbers were also reduced at the site, according to the report.

Satellite images from Fordow show cargo trucks lining up at the entrance of the nuclear site in recent days.

How has Iran responded so far?

Iran’s foreign minister Abbas Araghchi warned that the US strikes “will have everlasting consequences”, adding that his country “reserves all options” to retaliate.

“The events this morning are outrageous and will have everlasting consequences,” Mr Araghchi wrote on X. “Each and every member of the UN must be alarmed over this extremely dangerous, lawless and criminal behaviour.”

Iran has requested an emergency meeting of the UN Security Council to “maintain international peace and condemn the US strikes”, according to state media.

Multiple places in Israel have been hit by Iranian missiles in response.

Several explosions have been heard over Tel Aviv with Israeli media saying missiles have hit northern and central Israel, including in Haifa, Ness Ziona, Rishon LeZion and Tel Aviv.

Sixteen casualties were reported by the country’s emergency services.

Abbas Golroo, head of the Iranian parliament’s foreign policy committee, also said in a statement on social media Iran could pull out of efforts to limit the spread of nuclear technology and weapons, called the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT).

He cited Article 10 of the treaty, which states that an NPT member has “the right to withdraw from the treaty if it decides that extraordinary events have jeopardised the supreme interests of its country”.