Evgeny Grishkovets is a Russian playwright, actor, director, and writer. Born on February 7, 1967, in Kemerovo, RSFSR, USSR.
He maintains a personal blog in which he writes non-aggressively yet provocatively about the Ukrainian state and culture, negatively evaluating Ukraine's pro-Western course.
After 2014, he illegally visited Crimea and called the annexation just.
In 2017, he received an entry ban to Ukraine as a person posing a threat to the national security of Ukraine.
In August 2017, he was entered into the database of the Myrotvorets center for conscious violation of the state border of Ukraine in order to enter occupied Crimea, participation in Russian propaganda events against Ukraine, support for the Russian Federation's military aggression against Ukraine, etc.
Grishkovets's position regarding the war in Ukraine
On February 25, 2022, Grishkovets published an appeal on his website opposing the war with Ukraine, but the post was later deleted... due to the tightening of Russian legislation:
Up until the very last moment, we pinned our hopes on this not happening, not occurring, not beginning... We hoped there would be ultimatums, the harshest threats, final warnings... But words! Not war!
None of us had any opportunity to influence the decision that was made and begun to be executed... I had and have no opportunity to change anything whatsoever... I can only say: I am against the war! I ask, I demand: stop the war! Stop the madness and grief!
This was followed by another post published on the artist's website:
I have grown old from grieving... Grieving as I see and hear the hatred and distorted faces with which the name of my beloved Motherland is uttered. Grieving because the majority of my compatriots carelessly believe that everything is going according to plan, that a plan exists and is aimed at achieving justice. Grieving because many people close to me and colleagues are leaving the Motherland driven by fear, convictions, and the impossibility of remaining in a country they can no longer consider their own. Grieving that they are branded traitors. Grieving that Russian soldiers are displaying, as the president and high command say, courage and heroism on the territory of Ukraine, where people call them occupiers, invaders, murderers... I feel pity for the soldiers who are there, because they are soldiers and true to their oath. I feel pity for those soldiers who, faithful to their oath, are defending their homeland from Russian soldiers. I grieve and pray for all the peaceful civilians who ceased being peaceful on February 24, which is to say a very long time ago. I pray for the children of Kharkiv, Chernihiv, Kyiv, and other unfortunate Ukrainian cities...
Following the announcement of partial mobilization, he stated the following:
I gave three years of military service in the Pacific Fleet. Now I am useful to the motherland and to people in a different capacity! This mobilization will lead to nothing good!
Yet as early as May 2022, Evgeny slightly "changed shoes" and gave a concert at a meeting of «Yermak» special forces with volunteers.
In January 2023, he performed for Russian servicemen undergoing treatment at the military hospital of the Central Military District in Novosibirsk. He refused to comment on this act to the media, merely noting:
I was performing not for servicemen, but for wounded soldiers, wounded fellow countrymen of mine.
While Grishkovets seemingly does not support the war as a whole, he nonetheless supports and to some extent justifies Russian soldiers. Furthermore, Evgeny Grishkovets continues to tour Russian cities actively and pay bloody rubles into the budget of the aggressor state.
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