Russian diva condemns Putin’s war on Ukraine in first interview since exile

JB minor note: For some reason beyond my understanding, the image of the person who appears at the top of this page as shown on the internet is someone I've never met -- and never care to meet.

 

Russian President Vladimir Putin and Russian pop singer Alla Pugacheva attend an awards ceremony in the Kremlin in Moscow in December 2014. (Alexei Druzhinin/AP)

9/11, 2025

Alla Pugacheva, Russia’s “prima donna,” dominated the Soviet music scene and gave her first interview since being forced into exile after the invasion of Ukraine. 

By Mary Ilyushina

 and  

Francesca Ebel, 

The Washington Post, 9/11/25 3:18 PM

JB 

: Not all photos in this article could be reproduced here, 

for 

reasons beyond my understanding

Russia’s most famous pop star — think Madonna meets Cher with a sprinkling of Elizabeth Taylor — gave her first interview since leaving Russia three years ago and condemned the Russian invasion of Ukraine. 

Alla Pugacheva, a pop icon known as Russia’s “prima donna” and loved by millions — especially the older generations — dominated the music scene during the Soviet era and later, and she even sang with Sting. In the 3½-hour interview released Wednesday and watched more than 3.5 million times in just a day, she reflected on her life in both Soviet and modern Russia as a journey marked by one armed conflict after another.

The interview took place at Pugacheva’s house in Latvia in mid-August.

"To tell your homeland that it is wrong is patriotism,” Pugacheva told her interviewer, exiled journalist Katerina Gordeeva, about the invasion.

An old Soviet joke once called supreme Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev a “minor political figure in the era of Alla Pugacheva,” a testament to her enduring popularity since the 1960s.

This status made her virtually untouchable for years — attacking someone so deeply woven into the national psyche risked alienating the older, more conservative base that includes President Vladimir Putin’s own generation.

At 76, Pugacheva is just over three years older than Russia’s leader, and up until 2024 he regularly marked her birthday, often giving her awards. She supported him in the beginning and described how at the time “he said amazingly right things … and now it’s all a shock.”

But Pugacheva’s star could not protect her family.

Pugacheva’s husband, comedian Maxim Galkin, spoke out against the war as soon as it began in 2022, drawing an immediate backlash from authorities and attacks from hard-line patriots.

Worried about the attacks, Pugacheva described in the interview meeting with Sergey Kiriyenko, a longtime Putin aide and powerful Kremlin official. He assured her she had nothing to worry about regarding her husband’s remarks. But on his desk sat detailed transcripts of Galkin’s comments that felt like an unspoken threat.

“He asked me what I was unhappy about,” Pugacheva recalled. “I said I was troubled by the impunity. I can give up everything, endure everything and ignore the remarks — but I was deeply worried about the [official] impunity with regard to our family.”

Kiriyenko, she said, simply told her not to worry.

“It seemed too easy: ‘Live in peace; you are our national pride,’” she recalled him saying. “Two days later, Maxim was declared a foreign agent.”

For years, Russian authorities have wielded the “foreign agent” label to discredit influential figures with dissenting views, branding them as pawns of hostile powers bent on undermining the country.

Asked by Gordeeva whether she had considered staying in Russia, Pugacheva said that neither she nor her husband thought it was possible to stay silent: “There is such a thing as conscience. And conscience is more valuable than fame, more valuable than luxury, more valuable than anything, especially at my age.”

After her husband was declared a foreign agent, Pugacheva turned to Instagram to make her own position clear. She wrote that she shared her husband’s view of the war — and dared the authorities to give her the same label. Soon afterward, she and her husband left for Israel in 2022.

“I won’t go into detail now about how awful this [war] is. Everyone knows that I am against the war, and I think that our country has suffered greatly — secondly, admittedly, as first [in suffering] is Ukraine,” she said.

“Do we need to spell it out at the elementary level that some people do not want to live in a communal apartment? That some people want their own place?” Pugacheva said of Russian attempts to demolish Ukrainian independence.

Even for someone of Pugacheva’s stature, there was no place in the country for her to express such sentiments. After the invasion, Russian artists were faced with a choice of whether to speak out against the war or lose their ability to work and live in the country.

Musicians, actors and writers who opposed the war were driven into exile or underground, while those who remained were pressured by the government to echo a new nationalist zeal in their work. Cooperation was rewarded with fame, fortune and prime-time gigs on national television.

Asked about the interview, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova called it “a bazaar of hypocrisy.”

The interview also angered Russia’s pro-war commentators, who expressed outrage that Pugacheva had not yet been labeled foreign agent for her “clearly subversive efforts” because of her status as one of the “People’s Artists,” a Soviet-era title awarded to outstanding artists.

“For such an attitude toward Russia and other vices, some people are deprived of titles and state awards, by the way. And this would not look like repression at all, but only as merited retribution,” said military blogger Yuri Kotenok. 

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Highlights

What the Readers are Saying

The comments largely praise Alla Pugacheva for her courage in speaking out against the war in Ukraine, acknowledging the risks she faces from Putin's regime. Commenters commend her bravery and contrast her stance with other Russian figures who support Putin. Some express skepticism about her move to Israel, while others criticize her as a traitor. Overall, Pugacheva is seen as a symbol of conscience and resistance.