In Ukraine, many artists have taken up arms to defend the country, while many soldiers have tried their hand at art, such as playing music or writing poetry, in their spare time. Combining art and war is an ancestral tradition, and one seen as an existential necessity at a time when the country is trying to forge its national, cultural and linguistic identity in the face of military aggression from Russia, with its identitarian and imperial ambitions.

In wartime, everyone tries to find their own way. Perhaps the best-known Ukrainian artist in the world before the war, filmmaker Oleh Sentsov, has become a seasoned fighter and disappeared from the world of cinema. Writers Serhiy Zhadan and Artem Chekh have combined army combat experience with writing. Rock singer Andriy Khlyvnyuk, who goes by the stage name "Boombox," alternates service in a police combat unit with fundraising tours abroad, while pop singer Mykolai Sierga has found a way to live both lives at the same time, by creating a "Cultural Forces" unit within the armed forces that hosts music and poetry nights near the front lines.

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