Russian superstar Alla Pugacheva attacks supporters of the war in Ukraine

"They were servants now they are slaves".

The Russian superstar, Alla Pugacheva, dubbed those who attacked her after her stance against the war in Ukraine.

"My God! What a joy to be hated by people I never could bear. If they were my fans, it means that I sang and lived in vain. The reason is clear. Let them grind their teeth. They were servants, now they are slaves." , wrote the 73-year-old diva on Instagram, relaunched by Meduza and Moscow Times.

The message says nothing else, but it is clear the reference to those who criticized her after she urged on September 18 to put an end to "the death of our children for illusory objectives that have made our country a pariah". 

Pugaceva's stance has had enormous echoes throughout the former Soviet world, where

.

The diva had never before publicly expressed a political opinion, but she had wanted to respond on social networks to the authorities who had proclaimed her husband, the 46-year-old comedian Maxim Galkin, a "foreign agent" after his stance against the war.

Pugaceva, she had challenged the authorities to proclaim herself a foreign agent.

She was then in Russia, but in recent days she returned with her children to Israel, where she had settled with her husband after the invasion of Ukraine. 

After the media reported his departure, a message appeared on the screen of the Ostankino tower in Moscow: "Alla why c ... did you come here", while a digital panel on Moscow's Novy Arbat street showed a photo of Pugaceva with the dates of imaginary concerts in the territories occupied by the Russians in Ukraine.

Beloved throughout Russia and in the former Soviet republics, Pugacheva is the best known Russian pop singer, a guest in the past also in Sanremo.

She and her husband fled to Israel after the Russian invasion of Ukraine which she has always opposed.

Pugacheva represented Russia at Eurovision in 1997

and is a hugely popular star in Russia.

Her successes survived the collapse of the USSR.

Until the invasion of Ukraine she was a constant presence on television and in the tabloids, where her marriage to 27-year-old Galkin, the latest in a tumultuous love life, had long held sway.        

Unlike her husband, Pugacheva had not publicly attacked the Russian leadership after choosing to take refuge in Israel.

Her post on Instagram about her makes even more noise for this.

According to Abbas Galliamov, former author of Putin's speeches, this is a real "slap in the face" for the Kremlin.

"If there are still important people in Russia on whom there is a general consensus, then of course Pugacheva is one of them", noted on Telegram the political scientist, now very critical of the Kremlin.

In the past Pugacheva was celebrated by both Putin and Boris Yeltsin.

When Mikhail Gorbachev died, the singer praised the last Soviet leader who granted freedom and rejected violence.