Chinese opera singer Wang Fan caused a diplomatic scandal after she was filmed singing the Soviet military song “Katyusha” at the Mariupol Drama Theater in Ukraine, where hundreds of people were killed last year, CNN informed.
Wang visited Mariupol with a group of Chinese bloggers. There she sang “Katyusha”, a folk song popular during World War II.
The Ukrainian Foreign Ministry responded to her action by declaring the group violating state borders. spokesman for the Ukrainian Ministry of Foreign Affairs Oleg Nikolenko named that action an “example of complete moral degradation.”
“Their arrival is illegal. It grossly violates Ukrainian legislation regulating the crossing of the state border by foreigners.”
Ukraine respects the territorial integrity of China and expects the Chinese side to explain the purpose of the Chinese citizens’ stay in Mariupol, as well as the way they entered the temporarily occupied Ukrainian city.
China, like Wang, has not yet commented on what happened.
The opera singer’s husband posted the following the Chinese social network Weibo:
“The ex-Ukrainian residents, Russian soldiers and civilians who settled here have been working hard to resist various attacks by NATO mercenaries and the Ukrainian army.”
The Mariupol Drama Theater was bombed on March 16, 2022, with hundreds of people hiding inside. The Mariupol City Council said that Russian troops “purposefully and cynically destroyed the drama theater in the center of Mariupol.”
Satellite images of theater showed that the word “children” had been written on two sides of the building before it was bombed.
