Pink Floyd also released a music video, directed by Mat Whitecross, with images of life struggling amidst warfare.

The single was released on CD and vinyl on 15 July 2022, alongside a new version of Pink Floyd's 1994 song "A Great Day for Freedom".

[5][6][7][8] The Pink Floyd guitarist, David Gilmour, was shown the Instagram post by the Ukrainian artist Janina Pedan,[9] who is married to his son Charlie,[10] and was inspired to record something in support of Ukraine in the ongoing Russo-Ukrainian War.

He said: "It's a really difficult and frustrating thing to see this extraordinarily crazy, unjust attack by a major power on an independent, peaceful, democratic nation.

[8] Mason's drums are decorated with reproductions of a painting by Maria Primachenko, a Ukrainian artist, several of whose works were destroyed in a fire caused by Russian shelling during the invasion.

[5][18] The single's artwork depicts a band logotype (in the style of Gerald Scarfe's lettering for The Wall) patterned after the Ukrainian flag alongside a sunflower, the national flower of Ukraine, in a 2019 painting by Cuban artist Yosan Leon.

[5] Some fans felt that it was improper for the group to release music as Pink Floyd without the keyboardist Richard Wright, who died in 2008, or the bassist and songwriter Roger Waters, who left in 1985.

The Classic Rock journalist Fraser Lewry disagreed, writing: "When thousands have been killed and millions have fled their homes, moaning about the absence of a band member [Waters] who left 37 years ago is churlish at best.

"[23] Waters was critical of the song, saying it "lacked humanity" and constituted a "content-less waving of the blue and yellow flag" rather than an explicit call for the war to end.