t all changed on February 24,” says Daria Kolomiec. She recalls the day, nearly three years ago, when Russia invaded her home city of Kyiv, Ukraine. “I was one of those people who didn’t keep my phone near my bed,” says the 36-year-old musician and activist. But that morning “I felt the vibration of my phone from the other room. I didn’t even open my eyes, but I understood that it had started.”
Before the invasion, Kolomiec had been a successful D.J., even founding the streaming app MusiCures at the height of the pandemic and using it to broadcast music and podcast episodes to a global audience. Just days into the siege, hiding in the basement of a local coffee shop with nearly 50 other people, Kolomiec began crafting ways to use her platform to support her country.
