Pugacheva’s husband and showbiz celebrity Maxim Galkin was declared a "foreign agent" last Friday for speaking out against the Kremlin’s aggression.
She then took to Instagram, where she told her 3.5 million followers that her husband wanted “the end of the deaths of our boys for illusory goals that make our country a pariah and weigh heavily on the lives of its citizens."
“I am asking you to include me on the foreign agents list of my beloved country,” Pugacheva wrote in the post. “Because I stand in solidarity with my husband, who is an honest and ethical person … who only wishes for prosperity, peace and freedom of expression in his motherland."
Pugacheva, 73, with a music career now spanning over 55 years, became wildly popular under communism and has sold more than 250 million records.
In an interview with Polish state news agency PAP, Russian political scientist Ivan Preobrazhensky said that “if the Kremlin doesn't silence this, it might become a problem” since Pugacheva's audience is the same people who vote for Putin.
Pugacheva's post has garnered three-quarters of a million likes, and nearly 100,000 comments, most of them positive.
Discussions online and in independent media went on for two days. And "while it may seem to be a case of a washed-up pop star with a grudge," Preobrazhensky argues that “what happened is important."
In Russia, "where the public space has been silent and there are no moral authorities, even Pugacheva can become a voice of conscience," he said.
“For the Kremlin, this is potentially a big problem because Pugacheva has an ‘electorate;' she has her audience. Her fans are people steeped in nostalgia for the ‘good old Soviet Union,’ people in their 40s, 50s plus, ordinary people … Sound familiar? Yes, because it coincides with Vladimir Putin's electorate,” Preobrazhensky told PAP.
(jh/gs)
Source: PAP