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A Russian court has fined the winner of the Miss Crimea 2022 beauty pageant, Olga Valeyeva, 40,000 rubles, about 678 euros, for singing a Ukrainian patriotic song. In question is a video posted on Instagram in which Olga Valeyeva and a friend appear to sing the song “Oy u luzi chervona kalyna” (“In the meadow there is a red kalyna”), reports Ria Novosti. The Russian state agency said the song “is considered, in particular, an anthem of the Ukrainian insurgent army and the Azov battalion.”
According to the independent Russian daily Meduza, the two women were accused of “Disparagement of the Russian Armed Forces” and dissemination of propaganda in favor of an extremist organization. While Valeyeva was fined, the friend was sentenced to ten days in prison. The woman will have received a lighter sentence because she has small children.
A video released in the meantime by the Crimean Ministry of Internal Affairs shows, according to Meduza, the women apologizing for having sung the song.
“I did not know and I did not realize that [a canção] it was nationalistic in character and definitely didn’t want to spread propaganda by singing it,” one of the women said, according to a translation by The Guardian. Before that, Valeyeva had already left a post on Instagram where she said that I didn’t mean to “hurt anyone”.
We just sang a Ukrainian song. We thought it was just a song that we had known for a long time.”
Last month, Moscow-appointed Crimean leader Sergey Aksyonov warned that authorities would react harshly in such situations after the song “Oy u luzi chervona kalyna” was played at a wedding. “Singing such nationalist hymns, especially during the special military operation, will be punished,” Aksyonov said. the people who do they will be acting as “traitors”he added.
The song is part of Ukrainian folklore, but it gained more notoriety with the release of a video in which Andriy Khlyvnyuk, singer of the Ukrainian band Boombox and who joined the Armed Forces, appears in uniform and with a gun on his shoulder singing it in Sofiyskaya . Square. , in kyiv, in March.
However, Pink Floyd used a snippet of the song on the single “Hey Hey Rise Up,” the band’s first joint recording in 28 years, the proceeds of which go to a non-governmental organization that supports refugees.
Pink Floyd unite to record song in support of the Ukrainian people
Source: Observadora
