Russia mulls labelling queen of Soviet pop Pugacheva a ‘foreign agent’ | Russia-Ukraine war News

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Musician Alla Pugacheva, who is now abroad, has criticised the Kremlin for its actions in Ukraine.

Russian prosecutors have requested the justice ministry to think about labelling Alla Pugacheva, the queen of Soviet pop songs, as a “foreign agent”, the Reuters information agency claimed.

If thriving, the shift would formally designate Russia’s most famed star as a foe of the Kremlin.

Pugacheva, acknowledged throughout generations for hits these kinds of as the 1982 music, Million Scarlet Roses, and the 1978 movie, The Female who Sings, has expressed disgust with the Ukraine war.

In 2022, she mentioned the war was killing soldiers for illusory aims, burdening Russian citizens and turning Russia into a pariah.

Before this month, the 74-calendar year-outdated stated that no ordinary man or woman would return to Russia. She is at the moment abroad.

Vitaly Borodin, an activist who heads an anticorruption group and who on a regular basis seems on point out tv, submitted an official ask for to recognise Pugacheva as a overseas agent.

Then Borodin published a letter from the prosecutor general’s place of work exhibiting that a ask for had been created to the justice ministry to take into consideration that, Reuters noted.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said he had read no official statements about the issue. Pugacheva, imagined to be in Cyprus, did not immediately comment.

https://www.youtube.com/observe?v=g8hkeUAkJvQ

‘Moscow’s Tina Turner’

Officially labelling Pugacheva a “foreign agent” would underscore the rift involving the Kremlin and numerous – but not all – of the cultural icons of Soviet and write-up-Soviet Russia above Ukraine.

These kinds of a stage would nearly undoubtedly want acceptance from the Kremlin. It has yet to opine in community about the singer and could nonetheless quit the process.

The New York Situations in 2000 explained her as “the goddess of Russian pop, Moscow’s Tina Turner with a trace of Edith Piaf, whose songs have specified voice to the yearnings of millions”.

Shot, a Russian media outlet with shut ties to the stability services, explained an official announcement could be built on her 75th birthday on April 15.

Becoming labelled as a “foreign agent” is frequently the very first indicator of serious difficulties from authorities in Russia. There are 787 organisations and people stated as this sort of.

The label has damaging Soviet-period connotations and its bearers have to place it prominently on all information they publish. They also confront arduous financial and bureaucratic demands.

For lots of opponents of President Vladimir Putin, however, the designation is thought of a badge of honour – evidence they stood up to a leader they forged as a dictator and say has led Russia to spoil.

Criticism

Supporters of Putin say that the professional-Western cultural elite which grew up soon after the 1991 slide of the Soviet Union is remaining cleared out and changed by patriotic singers, writers and artists who will be certain Russia stays sovereign.

Pugacheva arrived to the interest of Putin supporters for having six days from Friday’s gun attack on Crocus City Hall to make a remark in general public.

“Grief ought to be in your soul, not in Instagram,” she posted on Instagram on Thursday.

Pugacheva was also criticised for apologising to a Tajik singer who wept about the “public torture” of the Tajik suspects detained for the attack.

Some of the suspects have been shown currently being interrogated beside a street. A person was revealed in unverified footage owning part of his ear cut off and stuffed into his mouth.

Pugacheva in 2022 even asked for the point out to label her a international agent in solidarity with her husband, Television comic Maxim Galkin, who was place on the record that year.

Pugacheva has in the past been feted by both equally Putin and his predecessor Boris Yeltsin. When Mikhail Gorbachev died in 2022, she praised the previous Soviet chief for permitting independence and rejecting violence.

Soon after Putin requested troops into Ukraine in 2022, Pugacheva still left Russia. She has Israeli citizenship and has arrive back for some durations.

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