Russian Music After 2022: Between Propaganda and Protest

In 2020, not long before the COVID-19 lockdown, I finished work on a musical. Its plot was set in a country that had lost a war, and with that defeat, music had vanished from it entirely. Yet, the story always felt like it was missing a crucial link; it was never entirely clear why music, of all things, had disappeared from the country. Then came 2022, and everything became clear.

The war has transformed Russian music on several levels at once — as an industry, as an instrument of state ideology, and as a form of personal expression. But the central question it raises is this: if the state turns music into a weapon of propaganda, can music become a weapon of protest in return?

This article attempts to answer that question, drawing on interviews with musicians on both sides of the border, industry research, and the author’s own experience. This is a story of what happens to music when the state dictates its message — and what is left for those who disagree.

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Before the War: When Music Was Politics

Russia’s opposition music scene had a history of its own long before 2022. In a climate where political participation was already severely restricted and street protests were becoming increasingly dangerous, music emerged as one of the few remaining arenas for public dissent. Bands like Pussy Riot transformed their performances into acts of political defiance, while rappers — from Noize MC to Kasta — constructed entire artistic worlds around themes of state violence and social injustice.

The Kremlin understood the danger but had no viable pro-state alternative to offer. Although patriotic pop music existed, it carried no cultural weight, largely because it failed to resonate with younger audiences.

The war breathed ‘life’ into propaganda, fundamentally shifting the ideological landscape after February 2022. It gave the Russian state a mandate to demand not just passive patriotism from its citizens — the silent loyalty that had once been enough — but active allegiance. As such, the war called for a definitive stance, and for the first time in years, the Kremlin had one to offer in the cultural sphere.

The Ministry of Culture’s grant system, state-sponsored concerts for the military, and federal TV channels with massive audiences have forged an environment where loyalty is directly converted into career success. As a result, new propaganda icons have emerged, such as Shaman and Tatiana Kurtukova. Tellingly, Kurtukova’s hit track “Matushka-Zemlya” (“Mother Earth”) initially went viral in the United States rather than Russia — an ironic twist where state-approved patriotic music unexpectedly became part of global internet culture.

TikTok-famous artist Dead Blonde (Arina Murasheva) became an ambassador for the “LDPR.Music” platform and officially joined the party, receiving her membership card directly from its leader, Leonid Slutsky [translator’s note: despite its misleading name, the Liberal Democratic Party of Russia (LDPR) is a long-standing, ultranationalist political party that acts as a staunch, state-sanctioned supporter of the Kremlin]. She followed this up by releasing a merchandise line featuring a map of Russia that includes Crimea and the Donbas.

The evolution of the jazz scene is a case in point, too. From the early 2000s until 2022, it thrived as part of an independent club and festival scene, defined by international lineups, a cosmopolitan audience, and a strict distance from the state agenda. Following the full-scale invasion, the narrative shifted: jazz is increasingly rebranded as an authentically Russian tradition rather than a Western export. An anonymous Moscow musician describes it this way: 

“There has been a massive shift toward emphasizing that jazz has been in Russia for over a century, effectively rebranding it as our own national tradition. While the notion that true jazz only survived in Russia is downplayed slightly, the claim that Russia has the coolest jazz musicians is pushed aggressively.”

This same logic governs international cultural events. When Dima Bilan won Eurovision for Russia in 2008, the victory was interpreted as a symbolic integration into the European cultural sphere. Fourteen years later, Russia was barred from the contest entirely. The Kremlin responded by trying to build its own cultural infrastructure — and the ‘Intervision’ contest became a key part of that effort.

Originally created in 1965 by the International Radio and Television Organization, Intervision primarily drew its contestants from countries within the socialist bloc. Revived in a new format after 2022, the contest positions itself as a platform for nations outside the Western cultural mainstream — spanning the Commonwealth of Independent States, the Middle East, Africa, and Southeast Asia. The logic is obvious: if Eurovision is off-limits, we’ll build our own. Yet, there remains a stark disconnect between this geopolitical ambition and reality.

Musically, Intervision presents a curious contradiction. The material brought by participating countries is heavily tailored to European standards — from the pop production and visual aesthetics to the very structure of the performance. The Eurovision model has proven so entrenched that even a contest designed to oppose it ultimately reproduces its logic. This speaks less to any lack of originality among the participants, and more to how deeply Western pop standards have permeated global music culture — even within the countries that officially distance themselves from the West.

For instance, the Intervision winner, Vietnamese musician Đức Phúc, performed “Phù Đổng Thiên Vương,” which was effectively a remake of “The Code” — the track that won Eurovision for Swiss singer Nemo in 2024.

For Russia, taking part in such events is an attempt to retain a presence in the international cultural sphere through new channels. However, unlike Eurovision, these platforms offer no access to a Western European audience, no global media reach, and no symbolic weight. While this doesn’t make the contest insignificant, it does expose its actual limitations: it is not an alternative to Eurovision, but a separate ecosystem with its own audience and its own rules.

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Censorship and Pressure: The Invisible Musicians

The state does not just engineer the cultural landscape; it systematically purges independent voices. Producers and labels operating within Russia have been forced into a state of perpetual risk management. Collaborating with an artist who has left the country, even temporarily, has become legally and reputationally hazardous — not because a specific prohibitive law exists, but because no one knows exactly where the line is drawn. Amid this pervasive uncertainty, the industry consistently plays it safe.

The result is a silent purge of independent musicians from promotional booklets, lineups, and performance credits. Anti-war musicians still exist, their music plays on, but their names disappear from the official landscape. One anonymous musician’s story stands out: after the outbreak of the war, he stayed for a few months in Georgia, then in the EU. When he came back to Moscow, he was allowed onto the stage with an ensemble at a major venue — but his name was omitted from every single poster and booklet.

Unlike a formal ban, which can be contested or at least named for what it is, this kind of erasure leaves nothing to fight back against. As a result, many artists begin calculating everything in advance — weighing what they can say in an interview, which photo to post on social media, or whether to even mention the city where they spent the last six months.

Occasionally, however, this informal pressure manifests publicly. In February 2025, producer Viktor Radzievsky, blacklisted on the Mirotvorets website — an online database widely known for blacklisting figures deemed hostile to Ukraine — posted a comment on VKontakte, Russia’s largest social media network, declaring that artists who ‘harmed’ Russia ‘must not be forgotten or forgiven.’ He went on to urge the industry to deny them both business opportunities and concert venues.

The 2025 case of the band Stoptime and its vocalist Diana Loginova (Naoko) offers a textbook example of this dynamic. The 18-year-old St. Petersburg street musicians began performing covers of banned ‘foreign agents’ in the city center. As videos of the shows went viral and crowds of dozens gathered to the impromptu street concerts, the authorities retaliated with a succession of administrative arrests. After being detained, Naoko was told the pressure would stop if she agreed to perform for wounded soldiers from the war in Ukraine, make a public apology, and sing patriotic anthems. The band refused. Upon their third release from jail, the musicians fled the country — a stark reminder of the price of protest inside Russia.

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Musicians Inside Russia

State propaganda frequently emphasizes a deep fracture in Russian society, dividing the population into those who ‘left’ and those who ‘stayed.’ Yet this binary is a gross oversimplification — both as a general rule and when applied specifically to the music landscape.

Musicians who remained in the country without adopting the pro-state agenda continue to work, albeit under conditions of constant self-restraint. These artists describe an overwhelming feeling of professional isolation — not because they lack an audience, but because the community of colleagues they once built their professional lives around has vanished. For many, the current reality of the scene can be summed up in a simple formula: “No new talent coming in + an outflow of musicians = fewer collaborative projects.”

Club life in Moscow and St. Petersburg has not formally ground to a halt: venues stay open, and concerts still take place. Yet, survival is becoming impossible for many — recently, for instance, Powerhouse on Taganka, a crucial hub for the independent scene, closed its doors. According to an extensive study by the Institute for Music Initiatives (IMI) covering 2022–2025, the overarching picture is clear: while the market has not collapsed, it has contracted structurally. Major global labels and international streaming platforms have pulled out; the cutoff from SWIFT stripped artists of foreign revenues; blacklists have institutionalized the banning of performers; and event cancellations have become routine. The professional ecosystem — the very medium through which a scene develops and holds itself to a standard — is eroding. The domestic market is large enough to sustain the industry, but lacks the rigor to develop it, causing standards to lower, quietly but steadily.

An anonymous musician in Russia offers their perspective: “My sense is that the scene has become far more homogeneous in terms of opportunities for artists. We’ve lost several major festivals, independent venues are closing, and large-scale events are consistently state-grant-funded rather than commercially viable. This ultimately dictates both the selection of artists and the makeup of the audience.”

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Between Two Worlds

Yet, dividing those who stayed into two distinct camps — cautious anti-war musicians on one side and propaganda artists on the other — is a false dichotomy. There are prominent figures who have avoided taking any stance whatsoever, choosing instead to evade the central question entirely.

A textbook case of this silence strategy is Hellawes (Natalia O'Shea), lead singer of the folk-rock band Melnitsa. Since the invasion began, she has not once spoken openly about the war, choosing instead to continue touring the country. When asked whether she intended to stop performing in Russia after February 2022, Hellawes replied: “Not for a second. It is our decision to keep working in Russia, because we know our work is vital to people.” 

Failing to choose is a choice in its own right, one that comes with distinct consequences. Silence transforms into a non-verbal agreement with the regime: by continuing to operate, an artist implicitly accepts the rules of the game. For the audience, this silence acts as a powerful legitimizing force: when a trusted voice opts for silence, the public reads it as permission to stay blind. Venues stay packed, the concerts go on, and a collective illusion is created that nothing out of the ordinary is happening.

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Emigration and the Limits of Protest

Estimates from late 2022 suggest that emigration and performance bans cost Russia up to 30% of its musical talent. Opposition musicians fled due to escalating pressure, censorship, and the threat of prosecution for their anti-war or critical stances. Prior to their departure, many had already seen their concerts cancelled, their venues blocked, and their ability to work freely completely stifled.

For many, the first year abroad proved to be a professional hiatus rather than a fresh start. Finding an audience in an unfamiliar country meant beginning from scratch. Moreover, competition across European venues is fierce, while the very identity of a ‘Russian musician’ has carried deeply complicated connotations since 2022.

At the same time, some musicians — myself among them — describe life in exile as an unexpected creative awakening. Outside the Russian context, with its rigid hierarchies and unwritten rules about what is deemed permissible on stage, genuine experimentation has finally become possible.

Every city of exile has its own narrative. Yerevan became the first stop for many: visa-free, characterized by a feeling of transience that lingered for months. Tbilisi is more frequently described as a ‘limbo’ between Russia and the West — a place easy to reach and full of like-minded people, yet one where almost no one plans to stay for good. As for the experience in Serbia, I spoke with double bassist Ljiljana Danić (of the bands Doing Juliet, The Last Roman, and Emi Grand Five). After leaving Russia first for Turkey, she eventually moved to Novi Sad, where she and her wife are now ready to settle permanently:

"There’s no issue with audiences or venues here: you can walk into any place straight off the street, book a gig, and if you have something to offer, they’ll invite you back — and next time, people will show up specifically to see you. For my band’s first show, the promoters gave us a Saturday night; they literally handed prime time to a bunch of total nobodies. Serbs absolutely love hanging out in bars, so you’ll never find yourself playing to an empty room.

Busking [street performing] and bar gigs are my main source of income. It’s all legal: you visit the local town hall, introduce yourself, and receive a two-year license for just 4,000 dinars [author’s note: around €34 at the current rate]. Session work and private lessons are my secondary income sources. I also do recording and music production from time to time; I’d love to give that more of my time, so I’m currently looking for a studio space, though that’s unfortunately a bit tough around here. Basically, music is all I do right now.”

Other countries present higher bureaucratic barriers but have still become major hubs for exiled Russian musicians. In France, for instance, thanks to the association Atelier des Artistes en Exil, a great many performers have secured a relatively smooth path to legal status — owing to the policies of the French state, which began issuing long-term visas to anti-war Russians in the spring of 2022. Upon entering the country on this visa, artists can obtain a temporary residence permit, after which they can either apply for asylum or request a talent visa (passeport talent).

Paris welcomes artists with open arms, and the music scene here is incredibly vibrant. It is another matter that certain genres come with their own distinct barriers: local male musicians, for instance, are notoriously slow to welcome women and male immigrants into their circles. I once discussed my impressions of the Paris jam scene with a local friend who emigrated from Tunisia over ten years ago, and we both concluded that the community falls far short of égalité. Still, dripping water hollows out the stone — and we aren’t about to let that get in our way.

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Identity

The central question every exiled musician faces is one of identity. Performing solely for Russian speakers can only take a musician so far; the Russian-speaking diaspora is a vibrant audience, but it is not expanding. A musician who builds a career solely on this foundation risks ending up in a cultural ghetto: celebrated within the community, yet invisible outside it.

Anyone thinking about exile for the long haul eventually comes to the same realization: they must learn the language of their new market not just literally, but musically. This means understanding what people listen to here, how the industry operates, and what local audiences expect. It is not about turning your back on your roots, but without it, you simply cannot survive. Yet, for artists whose music relies entirely on Russian lyrics, intonation, and cultural references, this transition threatens a total loss of identity.

In October 2025, I attended a roundtable in Geneva on Russian music in exile. We did not reach any definitive conclusions, but the tension between integrating into a new market and losing one’s identity was widely discussed. A few months later, Joker James raised the exact same question during an open panel, and we arrived at the same verdict: being a Russian songwriter with no intention of returning home is a path that leads straight to a dead end. It is a brutal reality to face, but the sooner an artist accepts it, the quicker they can get back on their feet.

In a private conversation, French-based musician and queer activist DariXtrem explained her approach:

“Currently, I see myself as an exiled Russian musician. I’m in the process of translating some of my work into French. One song is fully translated, but my pronunciation is holding me back from singing it live. So, when I play for French audiences, I perform with subtitles. Before the song, I offer a brief disclaimer: why I translated it, what it’s about, and why I’m performing it. It turns the set into a mini-performance — an immersion into the Russian political situation. The French subtitles are projected behind me while I sing the track in Russian.

I was invited to perform at a local festival here in France called ‘Spring of Poets.’ I performed in Russian while we projected subtitles onto the wall. The performance really resonated with the crowd, and a lot of people came up to introduce themselves afterward. I believe that once I’ve mastered the language, I’ll become a French artist — but for now, I’m a Russian musician in exile.”

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Music as a Form of Protest: Does It Work?

Protest in exile is a different story. Russian musicians abroad release anti-war songs, perform at solidarity events, and speak to Western media. This work is important, but its audience is mostly made up of people who already oppose the war. Inside Russia, this kind of music is almost completely out of reach for the general public.

Can music really count as protest if the people protesting aren’t there anymore? There is no consensus on this. Here is what Russian composer Dmitry Kurlyandsky, now living in France, says about music as a tool for dissent:

“If we are talking about protest as an act of real-world politics, then no — political protest in art is impossible; it can only ever be an imitation. In art, blood, love, death, and tears are mere simulacra. Protest is no different. Art turns activists into actors, and society into a passive audience. By imitating protest, art effectively neuters and defuses it. In fact, politics often exploits this exact characteristic, using art as a safety valve for dissent. But there is a caveat. Art can protest against its own established forms — and doing so teaches resistance and critical thinking. Unfortunately, mainstream audiences don’t want that kind of artistic rebellion. They want a repetition of the familiar, a confirmation of their expectations, and the mere illusion of a political agenda. Real politics is not made in concert halls.”

In an interview with Ochevidtsy, Moscow musician and composer Pasha Pesochny offered a different view:

“I definitely think music is a core form of protest, or at least a starting point for peaceful resistance. I haven’t seen it change anyone’s opinions directly, but after my first album was released, many friends and acquaintances thanked me for the song “Ne Smozhet.” They felt it deeply and said it helped lift their spirits during this time.”

The OUTLOUD music festival recently took place in Warsaw, bringing together anti-war Russian musicians. An article in Le Monde quoted the artist Noize MC: “Our music, our lyrics — this is how we resist the Kremlin and propaganda.”

This highlights how several exiled musicians view their work: not as an effective political tool, but as historical testimony. Music acts as a time capsule, recording a stance when it matters most. This is a crucial function, particularly as the regime’s official culture works to rewrite history. However, framing this cultural preservation as active political protest is closer to wishful thinking.

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Conclusion

The war gave the Kremlin something it never possessed before: a mandate to aggressively reshape the cultural sphere. Today, the propaganda machine does not simply ban music; it rewrites and appropriates it. This means that sooner or later, we will have to rebuild more than just the industry’s infrastructure — we will have to relearn how to listen differently.

The anti-war scene handles this in different ways: with anti-war statements from abroad, and by quietly carrying on its work inside. Both strategies have their limits, but both continue to exist. And it’s precisely there — not in a unity that no longer exists, but in this stubborn persistence — that something lies which yields to neither ban nor appropriation.

Recently, while working on the arrangement for a new track here in France, I invited a blues guitarist still living in Russia to collaborate on the recording. The piece is based on a text by activist Nadezhda Kutepova, which I set to music. Despite the immense risks, he was eager to join the project and agreed to record his part — anonymously, at least for now. Such a gesture might seem minor given everything that is happening. Yet, it is precisely through actions like this that trust is built, and without that trust, no future collaboration is possible.

As long as musicians on both sides of the border are ready to listen to each other, make things together, and find a common language despite fear, pressure, and distance, the independent Russian music scene has a chance to survive. It keeps alive the hope of protecting its core integrity and, eventually, rebuilding a single, shared cultural landscape.