“There can be no just war. No to war! “, reacted on Instagram the actor Maxime Galkine. Yan Nepomniachtchi, Russia’s highest ranked chess player, tweeted on the day of the Russian intervention: “History has had many Black Thursdays. But today is darker than the others”.
The correspondent Elena Tchernenko of Kommersant – a daily considered to be close to power – organized a petition against the war, signed by a hundred people.
The situation differs markedly from 2014, when Russia annexed the Ukrainian Crimean peninsula. Hundreds of artists – but not all – then agreed to sign a petition organized by the Ministry of Culture to support the operation. This time the support displayed, despite the ambient pressure, is much more fragile. Thursday, thousands of Russians demonstrated a few hours after the invasion of their western neighbor, of which 1,800 were arrested by Moscow, according to the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights.
Domestic stars did not cross the red line: the name of Russian President Vladimir Putin, who decided on this war, was not directly mentioned.
But that did not prevent Ivan Urgant’s show from being canceled on Friday, officially for grid changes linked to the current situation, the public channel Pervy Kanal, which employs him, told the Interfax agency. Journalist Elena Tchernenko had her accreditation with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs withdrawn for “lack of professionalism”, she reported on Telegram.
“Tell the world the truth”
Less threatened, planetary celebrities overwhelmingly sided with Ukraine. American actor and director Sean Penn is in Kiev where he came to shoot a documentary to “tell the world the truth about Russia’s invasion of our country”, said the Ukrainian presidency, which praises his “courage”. .
“I stand with Ukraine,” tweeted actor Ashton Kutcher, whose wife, actress Mila Kunis, was born in Ukraine. The novelist Stephen King split a reference to a “playground”: “You must not sit idly by while a big child beats a smaller one”.
Not distancing oneself from Putin’s attack even becomes problematic for Russian artists. Renowned conductor Valeri Guergiev, known for his warm ties to the Kremlin and for a concert in Palmyra in Syria with Russian forces, was suddenly dismissed Thursday from concerts at Carnegie Hall in New York where he was to conduct the Philharmonic of Vienna.