Russian band releases anti-war song against Vladimir Putin's brutal invasion of Ukraine

Members of the anti-Kremlin activist group Pussy Riot released their latest anti-war music video “against the war that Putin started in Ukraine”. The video showcased scenes from the Russia-Ukraine conflict as the war entered its eleventh month. The video, dubbed “Mama, Don’t Watch TV,” calls against military censorship and repressions in Russia and advocates for an international tribunal against Russian President Vladimir Putin.

“We want to shout about this war as loudly as possible. Don't turn your back on the war. We must stop it,” Pussy Riot member Olga Borisova said in a statement to The Moscow Times on Wednesday. “We want people from all over the world not to turn away from these videos, to remember the crimes that Putin and his army have been committing for 10 months now,” Borisova said. “Putin's empire must die,” she added.

“The chorus is based on the words of a captured Russian conscript soldier who, in a telephone conversation with his mother, said "Mom, there are no Nazis here, don't watch TV." Russian propaganda daily poisons the hearts of people with hatred,” said the band in the statement. Highlighting western countries’ contribution to the bloodshed in Ukraine, the band in the statement said, “During all these years, the international community has looked for compromise and conducted business with Russia, at the same time sponsoring Putin’s cruel war. The Kremlin receives billions of Euros from the sale of oil and gas and each day this money converts into Ukrainian blood.”

Song highlighted Kremlin critics

The band outlined the consequences for anyone who defies the regime. “Those who oppose Putin are imprisoned, poisoned with military poisons and killed,” they said, drawing attention to the “tradition of political poisoning” represented by Russia’s Lab X, a poison factory that helped silence the Soviets’ critics and that is believed to play a similar function today. “Opposition figures of anti-government movements became victims of the ‘experiments’. Putin and the FSB are proud of this “tradition” and continue it: Alexander Litvinenko, Sergei Skripal, Vladimir Kara-Murza, Pyotr Verzilov, Alexei Navalny.”

Band issues demands

The band members issued a three-point demand, calling for an embargo on the purchase of Russian oil and gas and the sale of weapons and police ammunition to Russia; the seizure of western bank accounts and property of Russian officials and oligarchs and personal sanctions against them; and an international tribunal to try Putin, employees of Russian state propaganda, army officers and everyone responsible for the genocide of the Ukrainian nation. They asked the Russian people to ignore propaganda and not to participate in the war, take mobilisation notices or go to the military commissariat. “Every action against this war is important,” they said.

(With Agency Inputs)