The blogger showed a video that was filmed by those gathered at the celebration and distributed online. On it you can see and hear that Loboda is singing the Russian-language song “40 degrees” on stage.
Khaikin himself previously stated that he has three passports – Russian, British and Israeli. However, it is his Russian passport that he is proud of, since it is “an honor for him to have it.” According to the Israeli publication Walla!, the athlete is now applying for a Norwegian passport.
Loboda itself does not comment on the scandal.
In the comments, users were outraged by this act of the artist and noted that it was inappropriate to call her a “Ukrainian singer”; it would be better to call her “a singer originally from Ukraine.”
“She didn’t sign out of the propaganda machine,” subscribers emphasized.
“Really… Who would doubt it,” users expressed no surprise.
Context
Before Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the singer took part in numerous Russian shows and toured the Russian Federation with concerts.
On March 24, 2022, a month after the full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine, Loboda for the first time publicly condemned the war, and also began publishing information online about how and in what way it is helping Ukraine. In October, Loboda announced that it would allocate UAH 1 million for the restoration of Irpin, and in November – another UAH 1 million.
Loboda has repeatedly found itself in speech scandals. In October 2023, she announced that she wanted to hire a driver from the Bolt taxi service who refused to serve passengers in Ukrainian.
She continues to perform Russian-language songs. Loboda has also already released several compositions in Ukrainian.
