Music Ambassadors Tour 2025 documentary follows cultural strength in wartime Ukraine
Robbie Tolson (Photo by Tania Horbatiuk) - Music Ambassadors Tour 2025
Music Ambassadors Tour 2025 is now the subject of a new documentary film released by UAME’s Music Saves Ukraine initiative. The film follows a four-day trip completed in December 2025, when 10 music industry professionals from nine countries travelled through Kyiv, northern Ukraine and de-occupied territories in the south to examine how Ukrainian cultural life continues under full-scale war. The third edition of the project took place on December 15-18, 2025.
The route began in Kyiv, where the delegation was shown the big contrast between public holiday displays, memorials to fallen defenders, damaged military equipment, blackouts and generators. From there, the group travelled to Chernihiv, including a visit to Fabrychna 12, the cultural space developed by Nata Zhyzhchenko of ONUKA and Yevhen Filatov of The Maneken. The programme then continued to frontline-affected areas in the Kherson and Mykolaiv regions.
One of the central stops during the Music Ambassadors Tour 2025 was Velyka Oleksandrivka, where the local arts school building was destroyed by a Russian ballistic missile after de-occupation. In Davydiv Brid, the visitors were shown a village that had been on the frontline in 2022. In Snihurivka, they visited an arts school still operating from a replacement building after losing its original premises.
Below you can view the Music Ambassadors Tour 2025 documentary.
“Until you come here, you don’t really understand the scale of the destruction, the courage of the people, and how resilient they are. I want to take this experience back with me,” says Pavla Slívová, Head of Booking & Artist Liaison at Colours of Ostrava. “This is a completely different experience from watching it on TV and standing inside a building destroyed by a missile. What struck me most was how people in small towns and villages still come together and somehow keep hope alive,” says Robbie Tolson, founder of Turn The Tables.
The Music Ambassadors Tour 2025 ended with a public event in Kyiv that brought together the international delegates and Ukrainian music professionals. One of the projects there was EnterDJ. EnterDJ is a non-profit initiative focused on psychosocial rehabilitation through DJ workshops and music-based recovery work. It uses DJing as a form of emotional support and rehabilitation for veterans and war-affected communities.
“What Russia is doing to theatres, schools and cultural centres has nothing to do with war. It is terrorism,” says Mikko Niemelä, CEO and promoter of Ruisrock Festival and a YOUROPE board member. “What shocked me most was how much the world still does not see. I discovered many things I had never heard about before, which means that many of these stories are still not reaching international audiences,” says Ivan Milivojev, co-founder of EXIT Festival, YOUROPE honorary member and ESNS Exchange Ambassador.
The project is designed to create long-term advocates rather than short-term visitors. “This tour cannot be reduced to a programme of visits. What matters to us is that people do not simply see Ukraine, but carry this experience back into their own countries, events and professional environments.”
About UAME / Music Saves Ukraine / Music Ambassadors Tour 2025
UAME, the Ukrainian Association of Music Events, is a non-governmental organisation founded in Kyiv in 2019 by music industry professionals. The organisation was created to support the development of Ukraine’s live music sector and to strengthen the international presence of Ukrainian music. Music Saves Ukraine was launched by UAME on March 1, 2022 in response to Russia’s full-scale invasion.
The Music Ambassadors Tour 2025 is the third edition of a project previously staged in 2022 and 2024. UAME describes it as a cultural diplomacy initiative that brings international festival directors, bookers, managers and other music professionals to Ukraine for direct on-site contact with artists, cultural workers and damaged communities.
By September 2024 Music Saves Ukraine had already worked with 40 festivals and raised more than €555,000 for humanitarian needs. Two years later, nearly 100 music events across Europe have already supported the initiative.
The Music Ambassadors Tour 2025 and documentary were produced by UAME with support from the Askold and Dir Fund as part of the “Strong Civil Society of Ukraine – a Driver towards Reforms and Democracy” project, implemented by ISAR Ednannia and funded by Norway and Sweden.
Chief editor of Side-Line – which basically means I spend my days wading through a relentless flood of press releases from labels, artists, DJs, and zealous correspondents. My job? Strip out the promo nonsense, verify what’s actually real, and decide which stories make the cut and which get tossed into the digital void. Outside the news filter bubble, I’m all in for quality sushi and helping raise funds for Ukraine’s ongoing fight against the modern-day axis of evil. Besides music I’m also an SEO and AI content flow specialist and have an interest in everything finance from stocks to crypto. There is music in everything!
Since you’re here …
… we have a small favour to ask. More people are reading Side-Line Magazine than ever but advertising revenues across the media are falling fast. Unlike many news organisations, we haven’t put up a paywall – we want to keep our journalism as open as we can - and we refuse to add annoying advertising. So you can see why we need to ask for your help.
Side-Line’s independent journalism takes a lot of time, money and hard work to produce. But we do it because we want to push the artists we like and who are equally fighting to survive.
If everyone who reads our reporting, who likes it, helps fund it, our future would be much more secure. For as little as 5 US$, you can support Side-Line Magazine – and it only takes a minute. Thank you.
The donations are safely powered by Paypal.
