MEMPHIS, Tenn — Gemini Burke, the son of soul music legend Solomon Burke, was supposed to be celebrating his first anniversary with his Ukrainian wife here in the United States.
Vladimir Putin had other plans.
Burke had been living in Ukraine with his wife, Tanya, since the two got married in 2021. Tanya had applied for a visa to go to the U.S. with her husband, but the application was held up in the State Department until it was too late, according to Burke's friend and Memphis musician Jerry Jones.
"It's just sad," said Jones. "I've been communicating with him all year, and he said he wasn't going to leave without his family. Now, they're definitely stuck."
According to Jones, Tanya Burke received her U.S. travel visa just two days before the U.S. moved their Ukrainian embassy from Kyiv, where the couple lives, to Lviv in western Ukraine.
"We've been trying to leave since May of last year, no one's taken us seriously," said Gemini Burke. "We've had four flights cancelled this month alone. [From the U.S. State Department] it's been a bundle of information but no real help to citizens living here."
Just two weeks later, the Russians launched their full-scale military invasion.
Burke is now staying in a Kyiv metro station, acting as a bomb shelter, with his family.
"There was an explosion and a very bright flash in the windows," Tanya Burke said in a Facebook post. " A downed Russian cruise missile hit a multi-story building opposite us, we grabbed the necessary things and fled to the nearest metro station."
Burke said he had multiple interviews with the U.S. State Department to get travel visas for his wife since the two got married last year, but wasn't taken seriously until it was too late.
"It cost me $400 just to set up each interview, and they took it as a joke," Burke said. "By the time the request was finally granted, we had to move to bomb shelters."
"I just can't believe our government would leave them like this," Jones said, adding that Burke is an ex-Marine. "I've been in touch with him constantly. He feels like he's been failed."
Jones met Burke while on tour in Italy, where he performed in soul music festivals with Burke's father Solomon.
He said the two have been close friends for a few years now.
Burke is also dispelling rumors being spread on social media that the Ukrainians are intentionally blocking those of African descent from leaving the country.
"This is more about fear than prejudice," Burke said in a Facebook comment. "Everyone is trying to get out, and not everyone can."
Russia invaded Ukraine on February 24.
Kyiv, the country's capital city, is currently in Ukrainian hands but Russian forces have been attacking the city from the air.