Russian singer Alla Pugachyova calls Chechen leader Dzhokhar Dudaev ‘a decent and respectable man’
Russian singer Alla Pugachyova, in her first major interview after leaving Russia and the start of the full-scale military invasion of Ukraine, spoke about her relationship with the former Chechen President Dzhokhar Dudaev, whom she described as ‘a decent, respectable, intelligent’ man.
Pugachyova also called him ‘a handsome man’ and expressed regret that she could not do anything to help his wife in those years and ‘could not do anything to make Dzhokhar live’. The relevant fragments of the interview are published in full on the YouTube channel of the project ‘Say to Gordeyeva’.
‘The First Chechen War is memorable to me because I knew Dzhokhar Dudaev. He was such a decent, respectable, intelligent person. A handsome man. And what a wife! An artist, a writer, a politician. I am even ashamed, she phoned me thinking that I could somehow help. And how could I help? Nothing. I am even ashamed to pass on my regards to her. Alla Fyodorovna, if you should happen to see this interview, I apologise that I could not do anything to keep Dzhokhar alive, to help you somehow', she said in the interview.
Major General Sergei Lipovoy, in an interview with the pro-Kremlin Russian media outlet Arguments and Facts, commented on Pugachyova’s words.
‘Pugachyova, despite her absurd statements, has already been punished. She is forgotten by fans, by television viewers, there is no road back for her to Russia. She is now forced to make such statements, living abroad. In fact it was thanks to Soviet viewers that she rose to the Olympus, and now she shows her “gratitude”. She is trying to whitewash the enemies of Russia, those who tried to tear away the Caucasus. Pugachyova has renounced her homeland, and now spits dirt on the country, yet calls those who killed Russians decent people’, Lipovoy said.
According to the general, Pugachyova makes such statements to remind fans who have long forgotten her.
Lipovoy also noted that Pugachyova is currently ‘abroad among an environment that is not friendly to Russia at all’.
‘And if she does not smear the Russian Federation, they will quickly expel her from there and send her back. And in Russia, as we understand, everything is already closed to her. Therefore she is forced to make such statements, which do not at all fit our understanding of decency. Pugachyova has shown her true face', Lipovoy said.
According to the general, the singer could have met Dudaev at a closed party that could have taken place in the Caucasus in the 1990s. In his view, Pugachyova probably communicated with Dudaev after he had already become an ‘enemy of Russia’.
Pugachyova is a major figure in Soviet and Russian pop music, a singer and stage artist with a career spanning more than fifty years. She gained wide fame in the 1970s–1980s and has since remained one of the most recognisable performers in the post-Soviet space. She is called the ‘prima donna’ of the Russian stage.
After the start of the full-scale military invasion of Ukraine, Pugachyova left Russia.
Dzhokhar Dudaev — Major-General of Aviation, the first president of the self-proclaimed Chechen Republic of Ichkeria and supreme commander during the First Chechen War — was killed in April 1996. According to one version, Russian security services pinpointed his location when he used a satellite phone, which allowed a targeted strike. Dudaev was survived by his wife, Alla, an artist and publicist, and three children.
Memorial plaques in honour of Dudaev have been unveiled in many countries — Estonia, Ukraine, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, and Turkey.
The First Chechen War lasted from December 1994 to August 1996. According to the Russian Interior, in 1994–1995 about 26,000 people died in Chechnya in total, including 2,000–14,000 Russian soldiers, 10,000–15,000 Chechen fighters, and up to 80,000 civilians, according to some estimates.
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