The Kremlin had promised to launch a new alternative A, an international event that would compete with the veteran music festival after his invasion of Ukraine in 2022. Interview started with a huge virtual projection of a cowboy that presented the American artist, a propapaganda coup against the West in full war. But the prick was stratospheric. The Americans planted Russia twice and the spectators found a foreseeable show that at many times was a clone of their propaganda channels. Nothing weird, his organization was not in charge of anyone from the world of television, but from the powerful of Vladimir Putin.
23 artists invited by Kremlin, most friendly nations such as the republics of Central Asia, China, Serbia, Venezuela, Cuba, Brazil and India, among others participated in the event. Moscow did not facilitate the criterion for the choice of artists.
“For reasons outside the organizers and the US delegation, and due to an unprecedented political pressure of the Australian government, singer Vasssy [ciudadana estadounidense y australiana] He will not be able to act in the final of the contest, ”said the message that the organizers published with the contest already underway.
Singer Brandon Howard had been invited at first to represent the United States, but the artist retired “for family reasons” three days before the event was held and was replaced at the last minute by the Australian singer Vasssy.
The scandal did not end here. Russia has declared what it calls “the LGBT International Movement” as a “”, so any homosexual public demonstration is punishable with jail. After Vassy’s nomination, the Russian media discovered that someone had erased from the Wikipedia that the artist was an ambassador of the Noh8 campaign, an NGO dedicated to promoting the right to marriage LGBTQ+.
And these casualties also added that of American producer Araz Mamet, who also mysteriously erased as a jury member while his collaborator Brandon Howard. His substitute was the exvocalist of Deep Purple Joe Lynn Turner.
A program designed from the Kremlin
Interview was an excessively Russian product and this could include its international projection against Eurovision. In an alleged improvisation that seemed fully prepared by the organizers, the Russian singer, Yaroslav Drónov, known as Shaman, turned away from the vote. The Vietnamese singer Duc Phuc won a contest.
“I ask the estimated members of the jury not to qualify my performance today. I represent Russia, and Russia has already won by having them here with us,” Shaman proclaimed at the end of his song. Then he would pronounce his usual war cry: “I am Russian!”
It was so obvious that behind the program was the presidential administration of Putin, that the first guest in being interviewed was the Foreign Minister, Serguéi Lavrov, to give a speech about the BRICS.
Vladimir Putin opened the festival before with a recorded video. With serious gesture, the president spoke that “nations have the right to preserve their identity and freely develop” while their attempt to definitely submit Ukraine more than three and a half years. “Respect for traditional values is the fundamental idea of the contest,” added the president of a country in which to support homosexuals.
The Kremlin left no detail at random during broadcast. “Russia! Russia! Russia!” The public chanted in unison when the contest started. In the stands the only visible flags were Russian or BTV bank, and appeared on the screen.
“I am Russian, my blood belongs to my father / I am Russian and I am lucky / I am Russian for annoyance from around the world,” young blonde singed with the Russian flag painted in arms and clothes on the main television of propaganda, Pervy Kanal.
These verses belong to a Shaman song. An artist elevated to heaven by the presidential administration of Putin and who at the beginning of the war was criticized for recording a video clip in the red square wearing an aesthetic dangerously similar to the outfits of the third Reich.
This same week, today in exile for his criticisms of war, he showed his sadness for the turn given by Shaman. “It hurts to see this, but the money triumphed over goodness. Man got what he wanted. He is a talented man, but I didn’t think he was so pragmatic,” the singer lamented in an interview.
Interview 2025 is an exclusive propaganda project of Kremlin although the name of the song festival organized by several countries of the eastern bloc between 1977 and 1980.
While Eurovision is organized by the European Radiodifusion Union, composed of 154 organizations from 56 member countries and 20 associates, interview 2025 is a festival made to its measure by the Russian regime: the Supervision Council is chaired by a powerful cardinal in the shadow of Putin, the first submEfe of presidential administration, Serguéi Kiriyenko, and that the organizing council is directed Minister Dmitri Chernyshenko.
The previous act was presented this week by the Russian Foreign Minister. In the previous one, he emphasized that interview 2025 would differentiate from Eurovision in his alleged universality and his defense of what Moscow considers “traditional values”, although Russia has not invited this event, perhaps by reco, to its new protected: the Taliban.
“We do not question the law of the jury and of Eurovision’s spectators to vote for a man with a beard, dressed as a woman and with some bodily modifications, but the interview approach is paramilitar.
