A charity concert in the Kremlin, in which he will perform on Friday with Russian singers "totally free of charge", also to launch a
"message of dialogue"
that is needed to put an end to "this unbearable war, this family feud between Russian and Ukrainian brothers".
These are, says Pupo, the reasons that pushed him to come to Moscow, where he landed on Tuesday evening
.
The singer, very popular in both countries, says he is ready to go to Kiev too.
"But the Ukrainians - he explains in an interview with ANSA - told me that if I go to Russia then I can't go to them, the Russians have never given me this condition".
baby
Pupo has been visiting Russia since 1978, "I never stopped coming there, and I even fell in love here", he recalls.
He met Dmitry Medvedev when he was president, played privately for Foreign Minister Serghei Lavrov and for many oligarchs.
Last year you only gave up at the last minute to participate in the Road to Yalta festival, a festival in Crimea dedicated to war songs
.
It is therefore inevitable that this trip will trigger new controversies in Italy, after the visit to Sochi by Ornella Muti and the street artist Jorit, who spoke with President Vladimir Putin.
"I - replies the singer - have nothing to do with those people there. I am Enzo Ghinazzi, known as Pupo, and I speak for myself. People are free to think what they want about what I do. I don't accept impositions, I am a conservative anarchist, as Prezzolini said. And perhaps with this character I wouldn't fit in well in Russia, better to be in the West. I'm not a good person, but I'm loyal, and I can't stand hypocrisy."
baby
Whose hypocrisy?
"Of those who today use as blackmail the threat that if Ukraine loses Crimea and Donbass then Putin will attack all of Europe. This is propaganda. Just like the hypocrisy of sending weapons that cost millions and millions of euros to people who they don't know how to use them.
So I clear my conscience and send you to the massacre. If we are coherent we should say that Putin is the same as Hitler. And then the only solution is to start a world war.
And I hope not."
So what should the West and Ukraine do?
"Heroism today means sitting at a table and talking, as the Pope said. Talking and swallowing a few bullets does not mean being slaves but being heroes and saving human lives".
But to dialogue it takes two.
"Russia has made it clear what it wants: the autonomy of Donbass, the recognition of Crimea as a Russian region and the guarantee that Ukraine does not join NATO. But be careful, the more time passes, the more Putin could raise the stakes. I say that I am an endogenous gambler."
baby
On Friday evening Pupo will perform in the State Palace of the Kremlin (not to be confused with the presidential palace but still within the famous walls) with Russian singers who will sing some of his songs in Russian and Italian, as he will also do.
A message of dialogue, as he says, but how to reconcile this with the tightening of internal repression against the opposition,
and even with the death of Alexei Navalny, a month ago
?
"I'm very sorry that it happened - he replies -. I hope that my music and the reasons why I'm here will contribute to ensuring that certain events never happen again and that freedom of expression also evolves. Even slowly, but it evolves ".
Then he rejects the accusations of those who say that he came to Russia for popularity and money: "Nothing but popularity. Singing today in the Kremlin brings me enormous problems more than anything else.
As for money, my participation in the concert is totally free
, I would never come to get money here right now. It's true, I've done everything to waste money in my life, but anyone who says that knows nothing about my economic solidity."
Reproduction reserved © Copyright ANSA