Ukraine’s ambassador to Britain makes an unprecedented intervention in the present day to assault the ‘betrayal’ of permitting Russian soprano Anna Netrebko to carry out in London.
Warfare hero Valerii Zaluzhnyi, often called the ‘Iron Basic’, warns that her look on the Royal Opera Home on Thursday is ‘a check’ by Vladimir Putin of Kyiv‘s ‘closest and most devoted ally’.
In a very emotive attraction to Britain, he writes in an article for the Each day Mail: ‘The Kremlin pays shut consideration to such alerts.
‘Will we enable Putin to make use of artwork as a curtain to cover his crimes? Will we enable his closest allies to face on the world’s phases as if nothing has occurred?’
Mr Zaluzhnyi says the voice of the soprano ‘for many years shielded a dictator’ and this week it can ‘drown out the actual cries’ of kids and moms killed each night time by Putin.
It’s a uncommon public intervention from the ambassador, who famously marshalled the defence of Kyiv at the beginning of Russia‘s full-scale invasion in 2022, incomes his ‘Iron Basic’ nickname.
Mr Zaluzhnyi has turned down all interviews since assuming his place in London in July final yr.
However Ukrainian officers advised the Mail he’s ‘extremely disillusioned’ by each Sir Keir Starmer’s administration and the Royal Opera Home for permitting Netrebko to carry out within the UK.
Ukraine’s ambassador to Britain makes an unprecedented intervention in the present day to assault the ‘betrayal’ of permitting Russian soprano Anna Netrebko (pictured in 2020) to carry out in London
Warfare hero Valerii Zaluzhnyi, often called the ‘Iron Basic’ (pictured in 2024), warns that Netrebko’s look on the Royal Opera Home is ‘a check’ by Vladimir Putin of Kyiv’s ‘closest and most devoted ally’
The Royal Opera Home invited Netrebko again for the primary time in six years to open the season on Thursday to sing Tosca by Giacomo Puccini at Covent Backyard (pictured)
The enduring arts venue is famend each for its excellent performances of conventional opera. Pictured: A view from the stage on the Royal Opera Home
The soprano has been feted by Putin, with whom she has been photographed on a number of events.
After his 2014 invasion of Ukraine, she made a donation in the direction of a theatre in occupied Donetsk and waved a pro-Russian separatist flag.
She has since left Russia for Austria, dropped her Russian passport and claimed she did not perceive the importance of the flag in 2014.
Netrebko has gone on to distance herself from the Kremlin’s invasion of Ukraine, writing on social media in 2022: ‘I’m against this mindless warfare of aggression and I’m calling on Russia to finish this warfare proper now, to save lots of all of us!’
However she has stopped wanting criticising Putin personally and claimed that, as an artist, she shouldn’t be required to take a public stand in opposition to her homeland to pursue her profession.
When New York’s Metropolitan Opera took a principled stand to chop ties together with her in 2022 she sued them for breach of contract and defamation.
Whereas a federal choose initially dismissed most of her claims, in July this yr the case was allowed to proceed on claims of gender and nationwide origin discrimination.
Now the Royal Opera Home has invited her again for the primary time in six years to open the season on Thursday to sing Tosca by Giacomo Puccini at Covent Backyard.
In a press release, Royal Opera Home chief government Alex Beard stated: ‘Our assist for Ukraine was aligned with the worldwide consensus on the time’, including: ‘Because the world’s geopolitics have turn out to be extra complicated, our stance has modified to make sure that our actions replicate our function and values.’
Russian President Vladimir Putin enjoys a drink with Anna Netrebko on the opening of a brand new theatre in St. Petersburg in 2013
The opera row comes as Putin continues to bomb Ukraine. Pictured: A residential block in Kyiv is closely broken by a barrage on September 7, 2025
Firefighters dampen autos following Russia’s drone assault within the Poltava area of Ukraine on September 7, 2025
Russian President Vladimir Putin offers a speech throughout a session of the 2025 Japanese Financial Discussion board on September 5, 2025
A Ukrainian official advised the Mail: ‘That is notably painful for Ukrainians to see our dearest ally welcome Netrebko.
‘It was British leaders who first understood the importance of Putin’s invasion, who led on the world stage in garnering assist in our darkest hour.
‘However now they seemingly do not perceive what it means to roll out the crimson carpet for Netrebko in London simply weeks after the crimson carpet was rolled out for Putin in Alaska.
‘The ambassador is extremely disillusioned, he has tried elevating this each with the federal government and the Royal Opera Home however it feels as if no-one is listening.’
Greater than 200 Ukrainian organisations have written to the Royal Opera Home, whereas the ambassador has personally raised the matter with Mr Beard.
Mr Zaluzhnyi has additionally written to the International Workplace and the Division for Digital, Tradition, Media and Sport, whereas Ukrainian activists have even appealed to the King, who’s patron of the Royal Opera Home – however all approaches have been rebuffed.
The Authorities has declined to intervene saying such selections will not be for it. The theatre is part-funded by the Arts Council and the Nationwide Lottery.
John Foreman, a former UK defence attaché to Moscow and Kyiv, stated: ‘Keir Starmer repeats these platitudes of standing shoulder to shoulder for so long as it takes.
Anna Netrebko bows to the viewers on the finish of an opera efficiency in Italy on December 2019
Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky shakes fingers with the then Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine Valerii Zaluzhnyi
‘However it’s as much as the Authorities to not backslide and present some spine. It’s completely disgraceful. Rules matter and this stuff are price preventing for. That is simply flawed.’
The efficiency comes simply weeks after Russia bombed the British Council in Kyiv.
Olena Ivashchenko, chief government of Marketing campaign for Ukraine, who has campaigned to cease Netrebko’s efficiency, stated: ‘At the exact same time as Russia bombs the British Council, Britain rolls out the crimson carpet for Netrebko? It’s simply so unusual.
‘How would Britain have felt if an ally invited a German Nazi supporter to carry out on the opera throughout World Warfare Two? It’s heartbreaking for us.’
Natalia Ravlyuk, head of Assist Ukraine, who’re planning a protest for Thursday, additionally hit out.
‘We recognize the assist of Britain and the British public a lot which makes this really feel so flawed,’ she stated.
‘Ukrainians are being bombed each single day by Russian terrorists and in the course of all of this, within the coronary heart of democracy in London, the Royal Opera Home is welcoming an individual who visited occupied territories, who met Putin personally.
Valerii Zaluzhnyi, now Ambassador of Ukraine to the UK, shakes fingers with Volodymyr Zelensky upon his arrival to the UK in July
King Charles, then the Prince of Wales, with Anna Netrebko after a efficiency of Warfare and Peace on the Royal Opera Home in July 2000
‘We have to arise for what is correct. Britain was main the best way and an instance to the world in defending democracy so that is very painful for us.’
A Royal Opera Home spokesman stated: ‘Royal Ballet and Opera has at all times been a spot for audiences to expertise the perfect expertise from world wide.
‘Each resolution about who performs on our stage is made with nice care and considerate consideration. Anna Netrebko has made her place clear on a number of events.’
Ms Netrebko’s representatives have been contacted for remark.
By Valerii Zaluzhnyi, Ukrainian Ambassador to the UK
When the curtain rises this week at Covent Backyard and the corridor resounds with the music of Puccini, the viewers will see a narrative of affection and betrayal.
The acclaimed soprano Anna Netrebko will step onto the stage as Tosca – and for some, it is going to be a night of excessive artwork.
However for me and for hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians, each observe, each tear will sound totally different. As a result of we keep in mind that, for many years, this singer stood alongside Vladimir Putin, the person liable for the deaths of 1000’s of Ukrainian kids.
Her voice on stage drowns out the actual cries – the cries from destroyed maternity hospitals in Mariupol, colleges in Kharkiv, kindergartens in Kramatorsk.
And whereas Netrebko will sing about an imagined tragedy, for us these sounds echo an actual one. Tosca might be weeping with the tears of Ukrainian kids.
Valerii Zaluzhnyi served because the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine from July 27, 2021, till February 8, 2024
Netrebko shouldn’t be a sufferer of circumstance, as she generally tries to current herself. She made her selection. In 2012, she served as a ‘trusted consultant’ of Putin within the presidential elections.
She met him dozens of instances on the Kremlin, posed for official images, acquired state honours.
In 2014, when Moscow was already waging warfare in opposition to Ukraine, she donated a million roubles to a theatre in occupied Donetsk, met with a separatist chief, and posed with the flag of the so-called ‘Novorossiya’ – the swaths of southern Ukraine that Putin is now seizing to amalgamate with Russia.
This was not a ‘gesture of mercy’ from Netrebko, as she claimed on the time. It was an illustration of political loyalty. And no aria can erase that truth.
Artists like Netrebko are the Kremlin’s ‘tender energy’, an instrument to make the world see Russia not as an aggressor, however as a rustic of ‘nice traditions’.
Netrebko has turn out to be one of many key symbols of this warfare. She represented Russia on the world’s phases, embodying the ‘magnificence and grandeur’ the Kremlin wished to show to the world.
Her voice was meant to point out that Russia is civilized, fashionable, worthy of applause. And on the similar time, that voice silenced the bombings of Grozny, Aleppo, Mariupol, Chernihiv, Kyiv.
She was, and stays, a cultural instrument legitimising killings in Ukraine.
Valerii Zaluzhnyi shakes fingers with King Charles III throughout a non-public viewers at Buckingham Palace, London, on February 20, 2025
This week, she’s going to step onto the Covent Backyard stage and other people will applaud her as if she have been solely a singer, as if there have been no warfare in any respect.
The Kremlin pays shut consideration to such alerts. For them, Netrebko’s efficiency at Covent Backyard is not only a live performance. It’s proof that even after Bucha, Mariupol, Kramatorsk, Russian artists with a previous in service to a dictator can as soon as once more take to Europe’s most interesting phases.
Britain is our closest and most devoted ally. Your authorities, your parliament, your folks supported Ukraine in our darkest hour.
You gave us weapons, political assist, shelter for tens of 1000’s of Ukrainian ladies and kids. You have been among the many first to grasp that Russia’s warfare in opposition to Ukraine is a warfare in opposition to the very precept of freedom.
That’s the reason it is necessary to not be detached to occasions corresponding to Anna Netrebko’s efficiency. This isn’t only a cultural event. It is a check.
Will we enable Putin to make use of artwork as a curtain to cover his crimes? Will we enable his closest allies to face on the world’s phases as if nothing has occurred?
Russia at all times tries to smuggle betrayal into the very soul. It does so underneath stunning phrases, underneath music, underneath the guise of tradition. However behind this masks of excessive artwork lie blood and ruins.
The actual tragedy in the present day shouldn’t be on the stage, however in Ukrainian cities and villages. The actual requiem shouldn’t be in Puccini’s scores, however in destroyed colleges, bombed hospitals, within the silence of kids’s voices that can by no means be heard once more.
I’m not calling for censorship. I’m calling for reminiscence and honesty.
Once you applaud Tosca, keep in mind: these tears on stage are echoes of the actual tears of Ukrainian kids. Once you hearken to the arias, keep in mind that this voice for many years shielded a dictator.
