Watch: RRR’s ‘Naatu Naatu’ song inspires Ukrainian soldiers to resist Russian invasion

Filmmaker SS Rajamouli’s epic blockbuster ‘RRR’ gained immense popularity in many countries after the dance number ‘Naatu Naatu’ from the film won the Oscar for the Best Original song. Videos of people dancing to the song often emerge on the internet and the popularity of the dance number is not limited to India alone. Recently, a group of soldiers in the southern Ukrainian town of Mykolaiv put their own unique twist to the song and dance moves. The soldiers are seen dancing to the rigorous upbeat tempo, but with their own lyrics. The video has now gone viral across social media.

The clip shows two soldiers dancing to the song before another soldier appears to push them, in a similar manner to the British bully trying to eject Ram Charan’s Alluri Sitaram Raju and Komaram Bheem played by NTR Jr. Following a roughly similar visual narrative as the original song, the two are encouraged by a Ukrainian woman who then hands the two soldiers drone remote controls.

The soldiers use the drones to drop grenades into a marked target, showing video from the drone of the grenade drops. This is a call-back to the now hundreds of videos from Ukrainian military operations, which show drones dropping grenades on Russian soldiers across the frontline. The song continues with more soldiers joining in and dancing. Even the woman is now seen dancing.

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The original video was posted by Jane Fedatova, a Ukraine politician.The video has already garneredover 6 lakh views on Twitter.

“The military from Mykolaiv filmed a parody of the song 'Naatu Naatu' from India of the movie ‘RRR’, the main soundtrack of which won an Oscar this year. In the original scene, the main characters express their protest against the British officer (coloniser) for not allowing them to meet with a song,” reads the translated caption Fedatova added to the post.

“Therefore, the fact that the Ukrainian version is against the Russian Federation, which colonised Ukraine, and the original is against another colonizing country, I hope will put the right meanings in the heads of Indians,” she added.

Interestingly, the original song was shot in front of the Ukrainian presidential residence, the Mariinskyi Palace. The shooting was completed over 17 days in August 2021, just six months before the Russian invasion of Ukraine began. While the surrounding areas in Kyiv suffered heavily during the initial round of bombing and missile strikes, the Mariinskyi Palace itself has escaped unharmed so far.