Maxim Galkin is one of the Kremlin's new problem children.

The comedian and TV presenter is well known in Russia, reaches millions of viewers via Instagram alone and, as the fifth husband of pop singer Alla Pugacheva ("One Million Roses"), is also a darling of celebrity coverage.

After Russian President Vladimir Putin declared his "military special operation" against Ukraine on February 24, Galkin wrote on Instagram that he has been in touch with relatives and friends in the neighboring country since early morning.

"Words can't describe how I feel!

How is all this possible!

There can be no justification for war!

No to war!”

Frederick Smith

Political correspondent for Russia and the CIS in Moscow.

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In Russia, you can now go to prison for such words.

Galkin traveled to Israel with his family in March, but spoke again with an Instagram message on Orthodox Easter at the end of April.

Shortly before, eight people died in a Russian rocket attack on the southern Ukrainian city of Odessa, including three generations of a family, a three-month-old girl, her mother and grandmother.

"Everything is not us.

But what are we doing there?” he asked.

On the one hand, Russia's officials prayed with Patriarch Kirill, on the other hand, cruise missiles flew into an apartment building, Galkin said.

Russia denies responsibility for this attack along the same lines as it denied responsibility for the Bucha mass killings or the July 2014 downing of flight MH17 over eastern Ukraine,

the comedian continued.

This post alone has been viewed more than six and a half million times on Instagram.

This is also remarkable because in Russia this platform can only be accessed indirectly via a VPN connection.

Frontal attack on "RT" boss

Galkin is one of numerous Russian comedians, musicians, actors, directors and other celebrities who spoke out against the Russian war.

The rapper Oxxxymiron, who has already been arrested at opposition rallies, has even given concerts abroad to collect money for war refugees.

In Russia, music groups DDT and Bi-2 have declined to play on stages with the "Z" symbol in the background, representing support for the war and for Putin himself.

The news portal "Medusa" (whose website in Russia can also only be accessed via VPN) wrote, citing "three sources close to the Kremlin", that Putin's presidential administration was "concerned" by statements by such celebrities against the war.

"Artists are opinion leaders, they influence their audience, their unsettled souls," said one of Medusa's interlocutors.

Accordingly, the critics become the targets of poster campaigns that make them appear as traitors and are no longer allowed to appear.

Bans on performing were already widespread before the war.

According to one of the sources, the campaign against the Kremlin's critics has not yet started in full force.

Galkin, however, was openly attacked on state television, perhaps because of his fame and social media reach: Margarita Simonyan, the boss of the channel "RT", accused him of "hypocrisy" on the channel "Rossiya 1" after the Easter message, because "everyone it is known exactly that he is gay” and that he married an “old woman” “for his career”.

Pugacheva is 27 years older than Galkin, 45, and the couple have eight-year-old twin girls who were delivered by a surrogate mother.