A Pop Star Tried to Reconcile Russia and Ukraine. War Ruined That.
Instead of performing and promoting “Dorndom” — which Dorn still hopes to release one day; its name is a combination of his own and the Russian word for house — the musician is now playing older hits across Europe and the United States to raise money to help Ukrainians in peril.

“I am trying to understand the extent to which this album would work today,” Dorn said.

For Ukrainian artists like Dorn, whose country’s culture as well as its politics has long been intertwined with Russia’s, such concerns have become familiar: Is it right to perform in a country whose leader claims your nation as part of his own? Should artists switch to writing and singing in Ukrainian, which could mean potentially losing access to a much larger audience, and market, in Russia?

After Russia annexed Crimea in 2014, many Ukrainian artists, including Okean Elzy, the country’s most popular rock band, and Monatik, a widely celebrated pop singer, stopped performing in Russia.

Dorn — who was born in Russia, but grew up in Ukraine — took a different approach: He continued touring in Russia in an effort to build “a cultural bridge” between the neighboring countries, he said.