Here’s a translation and a rephrased version of the text:
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“As military personnel executed their leader’s commands, the relocated individuals dashed away in various directions on their scooters,” states a line from “The Best in Heaven,” a tribute song for Russian soldiers who lost their lives in Ukraine.
This track is included in “Glory to Russia,” an album launched this month by the group Rep Vzvod (“Rap Platoon”), which features 11 songs celebrating Russia’s military actions in Ukraine.
Rap Platoon is among a few music groups creating nationalist and pro-war songs since the onset of Russia’s invasion, which forced many of the country’s top artists into exile.
Experts suggest these artists are unlikely to gain widespread popularity or make Kremlin ideologies appealing to the general populace.
Andrei Mikeyev, the founder of Rap Platoon and a self-proclaimed war correspondent, initiated the group as a response to anti-war rappers like Noize MC and Kasta, who left Russia following Moscow’s comprehensive invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
“Rap resembles a sandbox where boys fight over toys. There was no solidarity among those who remained in Russia,” Mikeyev mentioned during an interview with the 360.ru TV channel. “I aim to mix things up, so that well-known artists collaborate with ordinary individuals who are currently in a trench and composed a verse during a break between combat missions.”
“Glory to Russia” includes collaborations with well-known Russian artists such as Akim Apachev and Roma Zhigan.
Before the war, Mikeyev was the editor-in-chief of the pro-Kremlin outlet LifeNews, worked with state television host Anton Krasovsky—who later publicly called for Ukrainian children to be harmed—and was friends with rapper Oxxxymiron.
Russian authorities subsequently labeled Oxxxymiron a “foreign agent” and placed him on the wanted list.
“By gaining approval from the liberal circle, he lost touch with his homeland,” Mikeyev said of his former friend, referring to Oxxxymiron’s Interior Ministry profile, which states his nationality as “none.”
Currently, Mikeyev collaborates with producer Andrei Chernyshov, known as KIT, who gained fame in the early 2000s as a member of the rap group YUG and now produces beats for Rap Platoon.
The duo also manages Rap Platoon’s VKontakte page where they share interviews analyzing songs created by war participants. Mikeyev often appears in the videos wearing a cap with the pro-war “Z” symbol.
In one interview, Chernyshov recounted offering a beat for the song “Let’s Bow to Those Great Years” to rapper Legalize, who turned it down. Legalize publicly opposed the war, left Russia after the invasion, and was designated a “foreign agent” in 2024.
“A musical allegory of the Russian Armed Forces Cathedral”
Several songs on the album speak to Russians who have emigrated or those supporting the war from a distance.
One track, “We Are United,” portrays the composition of the Russian army: “Convicts like wolves and site workers / Don’t mess up when picking your side.”
“In this track, an alarm-like sound combines with aggressive shouts, while the harmony alters to a Phrygian mode with a flattened second degree, heightening the sound’s tension,” stated musicologist Anna Vilenskaya in an interview with The Moscow Times.
Throughout the album, she noted, artists utilize a blended vocabulary that fuses military and criminal slang — both purposefully masculine, aggressive, and rooted in a “closed code” that is challenging for outsiders to interpret.
This style has characterized Apachev’s work since the start of the war, as Vilenskaya pointed out his frequent creation of new “blatnoy” slang terms, such as “WagnerA,” a colloquial variation of the name of Russia’s Wagner mercenary group.
Pro-war rap, she added, heavily relies on street culture, religious imagery, and military symbolism — including icons, prayers, and bell-like sounds. She described the outcome as “a musical allegory of a military temple” where elements of war, death, sacredness, and “moral values” intertwine in a cohesive narrative.
The album’s concluding track, “The Best in Heaven,” merges bell sounds and tributes to fallen soldiers with critiques of émigrés: “Those who once betrayed will betray again. Stay there; we do not welcome your kind here.”
The song features Roma Zhigan alongside rappers with stage names such as ZHAR, Pasha Nero, and Somalyon Batali.
“In ‘The Best in Heaven,’ the soundscape is constructed from the outset with a funeral tone: bell chimes and two minor chords closely merging. The lyrics are densely filled with pro-war terminology — lists of weapons, slogans like ‘Goida!’, phrases like ‘to the bitter end’ and details reflecting army life,” said Vilenskaya.
Streaming Services and a Cancelled Rap Festival
Almost every post on Rap Platoon’s Telegram channel highlights backing from the Presidential Fund for Cultural Initiatives (PFCI).
Roman Karmanov, the fund’s general director, stated that the album has garnered over 10,000 likes and 92,000 streams on Yandex.Music.
This year, Rap Platoon applied for nearly 20 million rubles ($261,000) from the PFCI to organize a “patriotic rap” festival in Nizhny Novgorod, according to documents reviewed by The Moscow Times. The application was not approved.
Despite endorsements from notable pro-war bloggers and the PFCI itself, the group’s audience remains limited. The announcement of the album on Mikeyev’s Instagram garnered only two likes. Rap Platoon has less than 100 followers on RuTube, just over 500 on VKontakte, and fewer than 1,000 on Telegram.
“This album lacks genuine viral potential. It seems more like yet another wartime monument to corruption,” Vilenskaya concluded. “‘Manifest rap’ may have its own niche audience, but it is likely to remain underground and limited.”
