Aleksey Panin is a Russian theater and film actor. Laureate of the State Prize of the Russian Federation (2003). Born on September 10, 1977, in Moscow, Russia.
Panin's stance on the war in Ukraine
Support for Crimea's annexation and sanctions from Ukraine
In 2014, he spoke out in support of Crimea's annexation by Russia and claimed that Russia's borders needed to expand to Odesa, which led to charges of "encroaching on the territorial integrity and inviolability of Ukraine", as well as a conflict with activists from the Odesa organization "Public Safety Council". For this, on September 20, 2017, he was included in the list of persons posing a threat to the national security of Ukraine.
In January 2015, he was added to the Myrotvorets database for encroaching on the territorial integrity of Ukraine and deliberate violation of Ukraine's state border in the Autonomous Republic of Crimea.
Ambiguous stance on the war in Donbas
In June 2015, Panin condemned the Ukrainian authorities, adding that he would "with great pleasure slit President Petro Poroshenko's throat with his own hands", and also expressed a desire to visit Donbas and support the "DPR" and "LPR".
However, in 2020 he stated that Russia had unleashed "this war with Ukraine that nobody needed."
Stance after the full-scale invasion
Since the beginning of Russia's full-scale war against Ukraine, he has unequivocally opposed Putin's bloody regime. He emigrated from Russia to Spain and openly supports the Ukrainian people.
Statements and rallies in support of Ukraine
On March 12, 2022, he spoke at a rally in Madrid against the war in Ukraine.
On March 27, 2022, he emotionally congratulated his pro-Putin colleagues on World Theatre Day, which fell on March 27, reminding them of the Mariupol Drama Theatre destroyed by Russian occupying forces. According to him, the theater is now associated in his mind not with creativity and art, but with death:
Putin's executioners bombed the Mariupol Drama Theatre, where civilians were taking shelter. The President of Russia searched for fascists in Ukraine for so long that he couldn't think of anything else than to f***ing destroy the completely Russian-speaking city of Mariupol.
The actor addressed his stage colleagues, specifically Vladimir Mashkov, Dmitry Pevtsov, as well as those "who support this special operation, which the entire world calls a war":
I do not know how long you will live or how. I wish for dead people from Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia, Kharkiv, and Kherson to visit you every night, standing before your eyes and asking: «What for?» I wish that when you look at your children, you remember those kids from Ukraine who were pulled from underneath the rubble.
In an interview with Ksenia Sobchak, he revealed compromising personal information about Sukhorukov and Kirkorov, explaining his actions as retribution for their active support of Putin's bloody regime.
Criminal prosecution in Russia
In May 2023, the Investigative Committee of the Russian Federation launched a criminal case against Panin under Part 2, Article 205.2 of the Criminal Code — "Public Justification of Terrorism", over a social media post where Panin praised the explosion on the Crimean Bridge. In 2024, Aleksey Panin was sentenced in absentia to 6 years in a general-regime penal colony.
On May 29, 2024, Rosfinmonitoring included the actor on its "list of terrorists and extremists."
Panin's quotes on the war and Putin
SHAME ON RUSSIA! LONG LIVE UKRAINE! I am ashamed to have a Russian passport! I am ashamed to say that I am from Russia and ashamed of the Russian people who permitted all of this! Silence is also a crime. [...] The Russian people are a flock of sheep, 70% of the population. They genuinely believe that if Russia hadn't attacked now, Ukraine and NATO would have attacked after some time. I don't know what to say on this topic. It's impossible to explain anything to people: if they believe in it, they will keep believing in it.
Gaddafi and Ceaușescu didn't think this would ever end either. And nobody thinks about it right now: they think it's not about them and there will be no The Hague. I am convinced they will simply wall themselves off from the whole world, and try dragging anyone to that Hague. But eventually Putin himself will die and drag his people down there with him.
This always ends unexpectedly. How it will happen here... I know that it will come to an end. But in the first days of the war, we all made some sort of predictions, and now it's impossible to even make predictions. It is obvious to everyone that this will end. It is obvious to everyone that it will end with Ukraine's victory. That is natural. Everyone understands that. How many Russians and Ukrainians Putin will take to the grave, both his own and others — God alone knows.
I said that not because I was a raving lunatic. Crimeans told me: yes, we want to join Russia... It is shameful, of course, that I shouted 'Crimea is ours'. I'm not ashamed for Crimea, I'm ashamed for our president, ashamed for the government... that is what's shameful.
Nobody has stated more directly than I have that [Russian President Vladimir] Putin is a murderer. Now I realize that even opposition politicians like Ilya Yashin are afraid to say my name out loud.
What celebrities say about Panin's stance
Look at this scum and ask yourself — why hasn't a criminal case been opened against this piece of filth yet? Why can't we? Right now they just passed a presidential amendment to the law allowing us to strip citizenship from those who at some point betrayed our Motherland. We can now revoke their passports. Why can't we revoke this scum's passport? Explain that to me.
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