Celebrities and the cult of Russia’s President Putin

With legislative elections in months, famous figures sanctioned by the Kremlin are coming out in force.

In 2003, Yulia Volkova, one half of the Russian pop duo TATU, performed Not Gonna Get Us, a famous song about two schoolgirls in love, at the MTV Music Awards in California. Footage of the event was watched millions of times across the world, and according to Vice magazine, the performance “brought female queerness to the forefront of mainstream”. Last year, Volkova appeared in a very different video.