UK Prime Minister Andy Burnham has shown off his guitar chops yet again, treating Ukrainian soldiers to a taste of his hometown during a trip to Kyiv.
Weeks after jamming with Manchester indie icon Aziz Ibrahim, Burnham paid a visit to the country’s capital, where he pledged his support for Ukraine amidst its ongoing war with Russia.
To mark the occasion, he played a lovely silver T-style guitar alongside a number of soldiers.
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The meeting took place in a mobile recording studio of Ukraine’s military and artistic unit. They regularly perform on the front lines, in hospitals, and at rehabilitation centers.
“It was an honour to spend time with Ukrainian soldiers in Kyiv. Not sure if they regret handing me that guitar now,” the caption on Burnham’s Instagram post reads.
In the video, he takes the jack cable to play The Smiths’ Rusholme Ruffians.
The Smiths are from Burnham’s hometown of Manchester, where he was Mayor for nearly 10 years before becoming Prime Minister. The 56-year-old has yet to shy away from a chance to champion the music he grew up on.
The guitar he played was hand-built by WM Guitars from Kyiv. This model in particular brandishes a Cultural Forces emblem – a platform said to unite artists, activists, business, and international partners to boost the morale, cultural and educational level, and motivation of soldiers.
It seems to have been gifted to Cultural Forces, with a handwritten message partly visible on the guitar’s arm contour.
Burnham isn’t the only political figure to lend a few chords to the Ukrainian cause. Former US Secretary of State Antony Blinken played Neil Young in a Ukrainian bar during an international visit in 2024.
Meanwhile, SWFT GTRS has turned the horrors of the Ukraine-Russia war into guitar art, with head luthier Nikita Zhemerenko making his first guitar out of materials recovered from his destroyed apartment.
Another luthier has also pulled off a miraculous restoration of a Les Paul left charred and blackened by a Russian drone strike. The Ukrainian guitar community is showing its resilience.
