A legendary Russian singer has blasted her country’s invasion of Ukraine, calling it a “pariah state.”
In an Instagram post, Alla Pugacheva asked the Russian Ministry of Justice to label her as a foreign agent “in solidarity” with her husband, who has also criticized the war.
Pugacheva is a megastar in Russia and the former Soviet Union, having sold an estimated 250 million recordings and receiving numerous official prizes.
According to the New York Times, she is “the goddess of Russian pop, Moscow’s Tina Turner with a tinge of Edith Piaf.”
According to Haaretz, she and her husband, comedian Maxim Galkin, escaped to Israel shortly after Russian President Vladimir Putin’s army invaded Ukraine on February 24.
Galkin has now said that Russian officials are lying about war crimes in Ukraine. According to Haaretz, he criticized the supposed war crimes in Bucha and the destruction of Mariupol.
According to the independent Russian news site Meduza, Galkin was designated a foreign agent under Russian legislation on Friday.
Pugacheva wrote on Sunday: “I am in solidarity with my husband, an honest, good, and true person.”
She talked about Galkin’s wish to stop killing children for “phantom ambitions” that make Russia a pariah country and make the lives of its people hard.
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Pugacheva has previously spoken out. According to the Ukrainian newspaper Pravda, she signed a petition in 2014 in support of the Russian singer Andrei Makarevich, who was against Russia’s invasion of Crimea and its involvement in the Donbas region of Ukraine.
Pugacheva announced her return to Russia from Israel in August, promising to “put things in order,” according to state-controlled news outlet RIA Novosti.
She was in Moscow as of Saturday, the news outlet said, citing a post on social media that showed a picture of her.
The “foreign agent” statute in Russia was enacted in 2012. It was intended to compel individuals and organizations to declare outside-of-Russia sponsorship, but it has been utilized to crack down on Kremlin critics.
According to the Russian publication Kommersant, the anti-corruption movement led by opposition politician Alexei Navalny was also designated as a foreign agent before being designated an extremist organization in 2021.
According to The Moscow Times, the law’s wording was expanded in July to include anyone judged to be under “foreign control.”