Hundreds of demonstrators marched to the heart of St Petersburg in a rare display of protest against Russian President Vladimir Putin to sing anti-war protest songs.
Young people protested by singing antiwar songs in Kazanskaya Square, such as the banned song “Swan Lake Collective” by Russian rapper Noize MC, in a video that has now gone viral on social media.
The song, banned from distribution by the Primorsky District Court in May, features anti-Putin lyrics including “The old man still clings to his throne, afraid to let go” and “When the tsar dies, we’ll dance again — ‘Swan Lake’ on every screen.”
Crowds could be heard chanting the chorus: “I want to watch the ballet, let the swans dance. Let the old man shake in fear for his lake”.
Russia’s justice ministry designated Noize MC, whose real name is Ivan Alexeyev, as a “foreign agent” in November 2022. He moved to Lithuania following the invasion of Ukraine. Tchaikovsky’s ballet Swan Lake was a symbol for the collapse of the Soviet Union after being played continuously on state television during August 1991’s turmoil.
An 18-year-old musician, Diana Loginova, was brought to a police station, charged with singing songs by foreign spies, regional news agency Fontanka reports. The teenager, who sings under the stage name Naoko, sang with the band Stoptime before police broke up the performance.
Home media reported that the grievances against them related to the absence of documents required to perform. Images of Ms Loginova revealed her being held by police at a station after the performance during the protest.
The event is a rare instance of protest against Putin since the right to freedom of assembly is highly regulated by Russian authorities.
It follows that the UK imposed new sanctions on Russian oil firms and the nation’s “shadow fleet”. Two of Russia’s biggest oil firms – Lukoil and Rosneft – will be affected by the measures in a step, Chancellor Rachel Reeves stated, was to make it explicit that “Russian oil is off the market”.
Addressing the International Monetary Fund (IMF) annual conference, she claimed that the UK government was “significantly ratcheting up pressure on Russia and Vladimir Putin’s war effort.”
Donald Trump has threatened that Putin needs to end the war in Ukraine as it’s “making Russia look bad” and is going to “collapse” its economy.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov, though not explicitly addressing Trump’s words, announced that the Russian president was willing to put an end to the war and that Moscow was thankful for the efforts of the US president.
“As far as the Russian economy is concerned, it enjoys a comfortable and ample margin of safety to enable the leadership of the country and all of us to carry out the plans that we outline for ourselves,” Peskov stated to reporters.
