07 Sep 2025

By VALERII ZALUZHNYI, UKRAINIAN AMBASSADOR TO THE UNITED KINGDOM

When the curtain rises this week at Covent Garden and the hall resounds with the music of Puccini, the audience will see a story of love and betrayal.

The acclaimed soprano Anna Netrebko will step onto the stage as Tosca – and for some, it will be an evening of high art.

But for me and for millions of Ukrainians, every note, every tear will sound different. 

Because we remember that, for decades, this singer stood alongside Vladimir Putin, the man responsible for the deaths of thousands of Ukrainian children.

Her voice on stage drowns out the real cries – the cries from destroyed maternity hospitals in Mariupol, schools in Kharkiv, kindergartens in Kramatorsk.

And while Netrebko will sing about an imagined tragedy, for us these sounds echo a real one. Tosca will be weeping with the tears of Ukrainian children.

Netrebko is not a victim of circumstance, as she sometimes tries to present herself. She made her choice.  In 2012, she served as a ‘trusted representative’ of Putin in the presidential elections.

She met him multiple times at the Kremlin, posed for official photos, received state honours.

Valerii Zaluzhnyi served as the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine from July 27, 2021, until February 8, 2024

For decades, this singer stood alongside Vladimir Putin (far left), the man responsible for the deaths of thousands of Ukrainian children.

In 2014, when Moscow was already waging war against Ukraine, she donated one million roubles to a theatre in occupied Donetsk, met with a separatist leader, and posed with the flag of the so-called ‘Novorossiya’ – the swaths of southern Ukraine that Putin is now seizing to amalgamate with Russia.

This was not a ‘gesture of mercy’ from Netrebko, as she claimed at the time. It was a demonstration of political loyalty. And no aria can erase that fact.

Artists like Netrebko are the Kremlin’s ‘soft power’, an instrument to make the world see Russia not as an aggressor, but as a country of ‘great traditions’.

Netrebko has become one of the key symbols of this war. She represented Russia on the world’s stages, embodying the ‘beauty and grandeur’ the Kremlin wanted to display to the world.

Her voice was meant to show that Russia is civilized, modern, worthy of applause. And at the same time, that voice silenced the bombings of Grozny, Aleppo, Mariupol, Chernihiv, Kyiv.

She was, and remains, a cultural instrument legitimising killings in Ukraine.

This week, she will step onto the Covent Garden stage and people will applaud her as if she were only a singer, as if there were no war at all.

The Kremlin pays close attention to such signals. For them, Netrebko’s performance at Covent Garden is not just a concert. 

The iconic arts venue is renowned both for its outstanding performances of traditional opera. Pictured: A view from the stage at the Royal Opera House

The opera row comes as Putin continues to bomb Ukraine. Pictured: A residential block in Kyiv is heavily damaged by a barrage on September 7, 2025

It is proof that even after Bucha, Mariupol, Kramatorsk, Russian artists with a past in service to a dictator can once again take to Europe’s finest stages.

Britain is our closest and most devoted ally. Your government, your parliament, your people supported Ukraine in our darkest hour.

You gave us weapons, political support, shelter for tens of thousands of Ukrainian women and children. You were among the first to understand that Russia’s war against Ukraine is a war against the very principle of freedom.

That is why it is important not to be indifferent to events such as Anna Netrebko’s performance. This is not just a cultural occasion. This is a test.

Will we allow Putin to use art as a curtain to hide his crimes? Will we allow his closest allies to stand on the world’s stages as if nothing has happened?

Russia always tries to smuggle betrayal into the very soul. It does so under beautiful words, under music, under the guise of culture. But behind this mask of high art lie blood and ruins.

The real tragedy today is not on the stage, but in Ukrainian towns and villages. The real requiem is not in Puccini’s scores, but in destroyed schools, bombed hospitals, in the silence of children’s voices that will never be heard again.

I am not calling for censorship. I am calling for memory and honesty.

When you applaud Tosca, remember: those tears on stage are echoes of the real tears of Ukrainian children. When you listen to the arias, remember that this voice for decades shielded a dictator.