The office of Russia’s Prosecutor-General wants to designate legendary singer Alla Pugacheva, 73, often described as the ‘Queen of Soviet Pop’ as a foreign agent and potential threat for criticizing the Ukraine War.
State run news agency RIA said the recommendation to designate the singer –known for hits like “Million Scarlet Roses,” had already been sent to the Justice Department. The RIA report published a copy of the request, signed by Vitaly Borodin, the head of the Russian Project on Security and Anti-Corruption.
Pugacheva, once feted by both President Vladimir Putin and his predecessor, Boris Yeltsin – had also praised the last Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev after his death in 2022 for allowing freedom and rejecting violence.
Weeks after the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, Pugacheva and her husband, actor and comedian Maxim Galkin, left Russia after Galkin was classified as a foreign agent for his criticism of the war. Voicing solidarity with her husband, who is 27 years younger than her, she said Russia had become a “pariah” state.
“I am in solidarity with my husband, an honest, decent, and sincere person, a real and unbuyable patriot of Russia who wishes his homeland prosperity, a peaceful life, freedom of speech, and an end to our boys dying for illusory goals that make our country a pariah and complicate the lives of our citizens,” Pugacheva said in an Instagram post in September 2022, and urged the authorities to designate her as a foreign agent too.
According to the German News Agency Deutsche Welle, Pugacheva returned to Russia in May 2023 for the funeral of fashion designer Valentin Yudashkin, where Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov was observed kissing her hand. She left soon afterwards, but returned once more this week.
But although Moscow criminalised criticism of the military in August 2023, she is yet to be charged.
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