Top Ukrainian singer in trouble after controversial interview in Russia

Ukrainian pop singer Ivan Dorn has found himself in the middle of a scandal after making controversial comments about Russia’s war against Ukraine in an interview with a Russian video blogger.

In Dorn’s interview with Yuri Dud, who is also an editor of a Russian sports magazine Sports.ru, Dorn called the war in the eastern Ukraine, which claimed more than 10,000 lives since 2014, a “quarrel,” and made several other controversial remarks.

Dorn’s representative has not responded to the Kyiv Post request for comments by the time of the publication.

The interview was published on YouTube on April 11 and soon went viral, with Ukrainians criticizing Dorn for not being a patriot of Ukraine while seeking to please his Russian audience.

Dorn gained fame as a pop singer, TV presenter, and music producer. In February 2017, he released his latest, third album of live records “Jazzy Funky Dorn,” with another album expected in April.

Ivan Dorn’s latest music video, “Collaba,” was released in March. 

Earlier Dorn, along with some other Ukrainian singers and bands, was criticized for performing in Russia, which started a war against Ukraine in 2014.

The criticism was somewhat relieved when it was reported that Dorn had secretly donated $10,000 to the Ukrainian army in 2014.

However, Dorn denied this in his interview to Dud.

The singer said that he donated not to the military, but specifically to the civilians who had been affected by shelling, but that the volunteer who was in charge of spending the money used part of it to buy army supplies, and publicly thanked Dorn for that, putting the singer in “an uncomfortable position.” The Russian media then reported that Dorn was helping the Ukrainian army, harming his reputation in Russia.

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Dorn went further and in the same interview debunked another patriotic move from his past.

Back in 2014, many Ukrainians praised the singer for wearing a sweatshirt with the Ukrainian coat of arms – trident – while performing a Ukrainian song at the Russian Novaya Volna (New Wave) annual song contest in Jūrmala, Latvia. In the heat of the war, it was seen as a brave demonstration of allegiance to Ukraine on Dorn’s part.

But now Dorn says that he wore the Ukrainian symbol “so that people wouldn’t make a stink,” apparently meaning that he wanted to avoid criticism from his compatriots, who, he recalls, criticized another Ukrainian performer for wearing a costume with the colors of the Russian flag at the same event.

When the blogger asked Dorn what he would ask Russian President Vladimir Putin if he met him, Dorn said he would ask Putin “what it was like to be a Libra.”

In the same interview, Dorn also referred to Ukraine and Russia, as “younger and older brothers,” a description that is favored in Russia but disliked by many in Ukraine.

Ukrainian Culture Minister Yevhen Nyshchuk was one of those who lashed out at Dorn, saying that it was Dorn’s choice whether to donate money to Ukrainian army or not, but “talking about a quarrel as if nothing is happening (in the eastern Ukraine) is unworthy.”