This comes a week after her husband Maxim Galkin was branded a “foreign agent” for opposing the war in Ukraine. On her Instagram, where the 73-year-old singer has more than 3 million followers, Ms Pugacheva asked the country’s Justice Ministry to “include me in the list of foreign agents of my beloved country”. “Because I stand in solidarity with my husband, who is an honest and moral man, a true and incorruptible Russian patriot, who only wants prosperity, peace and freedom of expression in his homeland,” she added. She said her husband wanted “an end to the deaths of our boys for illusory goals that make our country a pariah and burden the lives of its citizens.” Ms Pugacheva’s husband, a comedian, TV presenter and singer, has often publicly criticized Russia’s actions in Ukraine and now lives abroad. Earlier this month, Vladimir Putin’s spokesman Dmitry Peskov said of Mr Galkin: “Our paths have clearly diverged – he has made very bad statements.” Local Russian media reported that Pugacheva left the country in February this year after the invasion began and returned in September for the funeral of former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev. Russian authorities use the label “foreign agent” for any activist or organization that openly condemns Kremlin policies. The megastar’s comments against Moscow and the war in Ukraine will likely anger the Kremlin. “I think this is her first strong political statement and that in itself, of course, is quite shocking for people in Russia. I think she’s not the only one who can sway public opinion,” the BBC quoted Artemy Troitsky, a Russian journalist and music critic who fled the country in 2014, as saying. “I think that morally and emotionally this statement of Alla Pugacheva is perhaps one of the strongest efforts in these directions,” he added.
