“Fatal mistake”: Warsaw festival featuring famous Ukrainian singers cancelled because of Russian sponsors

The music festival Easy Busy Fest, which was due to take place on 26 August in Warsaw with the participation of many Ukrainian stars, has had to be cancelled because one of the sponsors turned out to be Russian. News of this came to light thanks to the leader of the Ukrainian diaspora in Poland, Natalia Panchenko, who found out that the event sponsors included MixMerkt and Monolith - brands owned by Russians. Panchenko posted about this on Facebook, after which the Ukrainian band Okean Elzy was the first to refuse to participate in the festival, and then other artists began to refuse as well.

At first, Easy Busy Fest tried to save the situation, claiming that the Monolith group had only partially paid for their outdoor advertising in Warsaw and no longer had anything to do with the festival.

The organisers posted about this on Instagram. However, after the main artists refused to perform, the organisers had to cancel the event and apologise, calling their mess-up a "fatal mistake".

Background:

• Earlier, the artist Max Barskikh refused to participate in the festival in Chisinau if Russian singer Valery Meladze sang at it. Meladze was still included in the lineup in the end, judging by the festival's Instagram.

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