Watch chorus open ‘Saturday Night Live’ with tribute to Ukraine amid Russian invasion
“Saturday Night Live” opened Feb. 26 with a tribute to Ukraine as a Russian invasion in the country continues.
The show, which often cold opens with a comedy sketch, instead started with Kate McKinnon and Cecily Strong introducing the Ukrainian Chorus Dumka of New York, which performed “Prayer for Ukraine.” SNL shared a video of the performance on its Twitter account.
Following the performance, the video panned to a table of candles that spelled out Kyiv, the capital of Ukraine, as McKinnon and Strong announced “live from New York, it’s Saturday night.”
The chorus featured on the show “consists of non-professional singers performing classical, sacred, and folk choral music, primarily by Ukrainian composers,” according to its Facebook page.
The tribute comes after Russia launched an invasion of Ukraine on three fronts early Thursday, Feb. 24, “bombarding cities, towns and villages” as forces advanced toward the capital of Kyiv.
“We are not putting down arms,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Saturday, Feb. 26. “We will be defending our country, because our weapon is truth, and our truth is that this is our land, our country, our children, and we will defend all of this.”
Russian President Vladimir Putin has argued that his military forces are protecting citizens in eastern Ukraine who want to rejoin Russia, BBC News reported. Zelenskyy and President Joe Biden have rejected those claims.
“President Putin has chosen a premeditated war that will bring a catastrophic loss of life and human suffering,” Biden said in a statement announcing additional sanctions against Russia.
Ukrainian forces are putting up a “very determined resistance,” particularly in Kyiv, which is under heavy Russian attack by artillery and cruise missiles, Reuters reported.
Ukraine, the second-largest nation in Europe by land mass, was part of the former USSR until it declared independence in 1991. It is not a NATO member.
This story was originally published February 27, 2022 at 10:57 AM with the headline "Watch chorus open ‘Saturday Night Live’ with tribute to Ukraine amid Russian invasion."
