According to the website of the interior ministry, Russia on Friday designated superstar rapper Oxxxymiron, who is well-liked among young Russians, as a ‘foreign agent.’
The Kremlin’s offensive in Ukraine, according to Miron Fyodorov, 37, who goes by the alias Oxxxymiron, is ‘a calamity and a crime.’
His name was put to a list of ‘foreign agents’ on the ministry’s website, a phrase used to target Kremlin opponents.
The rapper has organised performances in favour of Ukrainian refugees from abroad and is one of the thousands of Russians who have left the country since the Kremlin ordered soldiers to Ukraine.
Popular Russian science fiction writer Dmitry Glukhovsky, who also denounced the offensive and was put on a wanted list for ‘discrediting’ the Russian army, was also labelled a ‘foreign agent’.
A Russian court ordered the arrest of the author of the 2002 post-apocalyptic fiction book ‘Metro 2033’ in his absence for his criticism of the offensive, and his name was added to the list.
Alena Popova, a feminist legislator who has long advocated for domestic abuse legislation in Russia, and Irina Storozheva, a journalist for Radio Free Europe/Liberty, were both put to the list of foreign agents.
The moniker, which is evocative of the Soviet-era ‘enemy of the people,’ has been frequently used against critics, journalists, and human rights advocates who were charged with engaging in foreign-funded political activity.
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