{"id":501708,"date":"2025-10-15T14:43:11","date_gmt":"2025-10-15T14:43:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/501708\/"},"modified":"2025-10-15T14:43:11","modified_gmt":"2025-10-15T14:43:11","slug":"incredible-moment-crowd-in-petersburg-sings-about-overthrowing-putin-world-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/501708\/","title":{"rendered":"Incredible moment crowd in Petersburg sings about overthrowing Putin | World | News"},"content":{"rendered":"

A large crowd gathered in St Petersburg was filmed singing an outlawed song calling for Vladimir Putin<\/a> to resign. Hundreds of brave young people joined street musicians in one of the squares in the city to shout anti-war lyrics branded “extremist” under the country’s censorship laws.<\/p>\n

The brave crowd were singing along to a rap from Noize MC, a pro-Ukrainian rapper, from a tune with the lyrics “Where have you been for eight years, you f****** monsters? I want to watch ballet, let the swans dance”, adding: “Let your grandpa tremble with excitement for Swan Lake”.<\/p>\n

The reference to the famous ballet Swan Lake is linked to the Soviet era when the ruling regime would often show the performance when major events were happening, such as a change of leadership in the Communist party. The song by the rapper, whose real name is Ivan Alekseev, has become an unofficial anthem of young Russians disillusioned with Putin’s war in Ukraine<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Alekseev has since been declared a “foreign agent” by the Kremlin, which has used the term against anyone speaking out against the war since the invasion started in February 2022. The musician released Co-operative Swan Lake at the time of Russia<\/a>‘s attack on Ukraine<\/a> in a bid to call for the end of Putin’s leadership and to inspire Russians to go against the government. The tune is banned in the Russian Federation.<\/p>\n

Such open displays of dissent in the streets of a major Russian city are rare, and previous demonstrations have been brutally put down by the authorities. However, perhaps in a worrying sign for Putin and his cronies, it’s not clear if any arrests have been reported so far from this latest outburst.<\/p>\n

The video has now been widely shared on social media, sparking joy amongst Ukraine<\/a> supporters and fierce anger on pro-Kremlin Telegram channels. Several prominent backers of Putin have called for all those involved in the demonstration to be punished immediately.<\/p>\n

Under Russia<\/a>‘s brutal new censorship laws, enacted since the invasion of Ukraine<\/a>, any material designated “extremist” can be prohibited and if the authorities do crack down on the youngsters in this video, they could face heavy fines and imprisonment.<\/p>\n

According to Russian news outlets, police in St Petersburg have detained a street performer who it is said organised the rally and singing of the song.<\/p>\n

It’s reported prosecutors have said the performance perpetuated a “negative attitude toward government representatives, in particular, toward the President of Russia<\/a> and his supporters”.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A large crowd gathered in St Petersburg was filmed singing an outlawed song calling for Vladimir Putin to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":501709,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[164495,12,164494,2579,101419,332,7661,164496,164493,333,658,26],"class_list":{"0":"post-501708","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world","8":"tag-anti-putin-song","9":"tag-news","10":"tag-noize-mc","11":"tag-protests","12":"tag-rap-music","13":"tag-russia","14":"tag-russia-ukraine-war","15":"tag-russian-censorship","16":"tag-st-petersburg-protest","17":"tag-vladimir-putin","18":"tag-volodymyr-zelensky","19":"tag-world"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115378717005676852","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/501708","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=501708"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/501708\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/501709"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=501708"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=501708"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=501708"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}