Singer Manizha represented Russia in the Eurovision Song Contest in Rotterdam last year. She is now one of the Russian artists speaking out against Putin’s “military operation” in Ukraine, as it is called in Russia. That’s what she does with the number Soldierwhich she wrote eleven years ago about the war in her homeland Tajikistan.
She decided to release the song a week after the Russian invasion of Ukraine. It can now only be heard on YouTube.
Correspondent Iris de Graaf spoke to her from the Netherlands in her studio in Moscow. There has been extensive contact with Manizha about this video, because of her safety. The singer emphasizes that she thinks it is important to continue to express herself in this way.
Here’s what she herself says about the song and what it’s like to be an artist in Russia now:
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