KYIV — Susana Jamaladinova, a Ukrainian of Crimean Tatar origin known professionally as Jamala, is now on Russia’s wanted list, state news agencies RIA and TASS reported Monday.
The ministry of internal affairs accuses the 40-year-old Eurovision-winner of discrediting Moscow’s army, Russian news website Mediazona reported. The site said Moscow put Jamala on the wanted list in October, and in November the singer was arrested in absentia by a Russian court.
Jamala, a vocal critic of Russia’s occupation of her native Crimean peninsula and invasion of Ukraine, won the Eurovision Song Contest in 2016 with the song “1944,” which is about the deportation and ethnic cleansing of around 200,000 Crimean Tatars carried out by Soviet authorities in May 1944.
Jamala, who is currently on a fund- and awareness-raising tour in Australia, reacted to the news by posting an Instagram story of herself outside the Sydney Opera House, with a facepalm emoji.
