Actor Andrei Burkovsky, who relocated to the United States after Russia launched its special military operation in Ukraine, has said he has refused to take film roles in Russia. He made the comments in an interview with journalist Yuri Dud, who has been placed on the Russian Justice Ministry's register of "foreign agents."
Burkovsky, known for the sketch comedy project "Daesh Molodyozh" and the series "Mediator," said leaving the country had already expressed his position. He suggested that the directors he would want to work with had also left Russia or abandoned filmmaking altogether.
He asked where the people were who everyone had liked, whose plays and films audiences used to attend, saying it was obvious he had left and that his action already spoke for itself.
Monetochka and the Spider-Man scandal
Burkovsky also said people in both Russia and Ukraine would remain unsatisfied no matter what an artist did. As an example, he pointed to the row over a song by singer Monetochka, whose track was cut from a Spider-Man film release in both countries.
He said that in the current climate, nothing was ever enough, whatever someone did would be judged as too little, whether it was seen as opposition or support, and he asked what more Monetochka could possibly do to earn that opportunity.
Background on the foreign agent label
Monetochka, whose real name is Elizaveta Girdymova, has also been designated a "foreign agent" by the Russian Justice Ministry, a status Moscow has applied to numerous artists, journalists and public figures who have criticised the war or left the country since 2022. Yuri Dud is a prominent Russian journalist and YouTuber known for long-form celebrity interviews.
The comments follow an earlier controversy in which viewers reacted angrily to the casting of an actor who had left for the United States in a remake of the Soviet-era film "Moscow Doesn't Believe in Tears."
