Singer Jamala has been charged in Russia. The winner of the 2016 Eurovision Song Contest is accused of spreading false information about the Russian army. She shared a video in April about the Russian invasion of her home country, Ukraine.
The prosecutor’s office says Jamala will be arrested as soon as she sets foot in Russia. Last week it was announced via Russian media that Jamala had been placed on the Russian wanted list. The singer travels all over the world for performances and was therefore in the Netherlands several times last year.
Jamala is of Crimean Tatar descent and has been campaigning for that minority in Crimea for years. This Ukrainian peninsula was annexed by Russia in 2014. She won the Eurovision Song Contest in 2016 with the song 1944 . That song is about the time when Soviet dictator Josef Stalin had approximately 200,000 Crimean Tatars deported to Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan, among others.