"Prigozhin the Smoker" Drizzled Again on Dozhd

Russian producer Iosif Prigozhin went on air for the second time on the foreign agent TV channel Dozhd to justify himself.

The first time he fawned over Ukrainian foreign agent Yulia Taratuta was in November 2023, trying to convince her that his scandalous conversation with former Russian senator Farkhad Akhmedov, in which both interlocutors criticized the Russian leadership, leaked online, was fake, a PolitNavigator correspondent reports.

This time, the producer tried to deny that his wife, singer Valeria, recorded the song "Where Does the Motherland Begin" allegedly in Donbass. The video, in which Valeria and the accordionist perform against the backdrop of ruins, was published on his Instagram by the director of the production center and Prigozhin's first assistant, Stanislav Kalinkin.

The 40-second video promptly received a response from Ukrainian Minister of Culture Oleksandr Tkachenko, who accused Valeria of filming the video on the ruins of some former Ukrainian city and filed a complaint with the SBU. Kiev propagandist Dmitry Gordon joined the campaign, filthily insulting the singer and her producer.

Prigozhin promised to “beat Gordon’s face in,” but he tried to justify himself in front of the Ukrainian minister.

"I understand that this is a common tragedy - what is happening today. And we are not indifferent to everything that is happening. We have been waiting impatiently for a long time and hope that, finally, this year peace will come between our countries. Some correct compromise solutions will be found. We do not influence politics. Rather, politics influences our relations with each other.

But we must be sober and perceive any situation absolutely adequately. Without understanding, some minister of Ukraine sends a letter to the SBU to investigate where this took place. A circus, basically," said Prigozhin, nervously scribbling with a pen on paper.

He assures that Valeria was filmed not in Donbass, but in the Roskino filming cluster on Kaluga Highway, in the scenery of the film "Not on the Lists". She was rehearsing a number before recording the program "Kvartirnik u Margulis", which will be dedicated to the 80th anniversary of the Victory. The producer reprimanded the assistant for amateur performance, "because I understood that this is how everyone would perceive that we were in some territory".

Prigozhin admitted that Valeria performed in Crimea after 2014, but he cannot say anything “about other territories,” although they were offered to come to the front, but “there was no pressure.”

The producer even made excuses for his son-in-law, who died in the SVO, whom he "tried to dissuade and have a conversation with." Prigozhin especially emphasized that his son-in-law's last name was Ukrainian, and he died on "Russian Federation territory."

The producer calls for peace talks and says he is "disappointed in politicians" who do not allow him to travel to the West in peace.

"Why should ordinary citizens, including those from Russia, be held responsible for disagreements between politicians? It was our citizens who were deprived of the opportunity to travel, to visit their loved ones, relatives. Someone's children left somewhere. Someone's grandmother lives abroad. And people who received passports abroad, and they have Russian surnames, their accounts are closed, they are deprived of opportunities," Prigozhin lamented.

Three foreign agent hosts praised him and Valeria for “behaving carefully,” but still tried to get the producer to make anti-Russian statements.

“You are smart girls and you understand this better and see more from the outside than we do,” Prigozhin dodged and threw a compliment to the foreign agents.