Russian anti-war actress Olga Vasilieva calls ‘letter of repentance’ attributed to her a fake
Decorated Russian actress Olga Vasilieva has dismissed as a fake a claim that she had petitioned the State Duma to allow her and her husband, Dmitry Nazarov, to return to Russia.
On the morning of May 14, the Russian security services-linked Telegram channel Mash published what it called a “repentant letter” purportedly written by Vasilieva. The letter claimed that Nazarov, “over the years of his forced absence, did not yield to the pressure of the so-called opposition milieu in exile,” “made no opposition statements,” and did not fund the Ukrainian armed forces.
“Today my husband, Dmitry Nazarov, wants something simple and natural — to come home. To live and work in Moscow. To continue serving his profession and his country as he has done his entire life,” the document read.
Mash’s editors said they had reached out to Vasilieva for comment, but she told the Telegram channel to look for their paycheck elsewhere.
Speaking to the independent Russian broadcaster TV Rain, Vasilieva called the Mash publication a “fake.” When the independent Russian investigative outlet Agentstvo asked whether it was correct that neither she, nor her husband, nor their representatives had written such a letter to the State Duma, she replied: “Yes.”
State Duma Speaker Vyacheslav Volodin also commented on the Mash publication, saying the letter had not yet reached the State Duma and that he had not seen it. Volodin added that citizens who had left the country and “insulted our defenders,” harmed the state, and funded Ukraine’s armed forces would face legal proceedings upon returning to Russia.
In early 2023, Dmitry Nazarov and Olga Vasilieva resigned from the Moscow Art Theater and left Russia. The actors spoke out against Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine from its first days. Two months later, they revealed that Moscow Art Theater artistic director Konstantin Khabensky had conveyed an ultimatum from the authorities: either 29 theater employees would lose their draft exemptions, or Vasilieva and Nazarov would leave the company. Since leaving Russia, Nazarov and Vasilieva have been living in France.
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