Ukrainian singer Anna Korsun — known by her stage name Maruv — has been recognized by MTV as the best Russian singer.
Maruv, 27, received the prize for the Best Russian Act on Nov. 3 in Spain at the ceremony for this year’s MTV Europe Music Awards.
Apart from Ukrainian Maruv, MTV considered Russian singers Face, Zivert, Little Big and Noize MC in the category.
Maruv hasn’t released an official response yet, but reportedly her concert manager Kirill Feldman said that this award “has nothing to do with the best artist from Russia.”
Feldman told Russian media 360 that he thought Maruv was simply representing MTV Russia since Ukraine doesn’t air MTV and MTV doesn’t have an award for Ukrainian artists, even though there are awards for Best Polish Act, Korean Act, Italian Act and so on.
And this isn’t the first time a Ukrainian has been given the award for Best Russian Act: in 2017, Ukrainian singer Ivan Dorn won the prize.
Meanwhile, Maruv repeatedly performs concerts in Russia and appears in Russian TV shows such as Comedy Club despite the onging war in the Donbas amid Russia’s annexation of Crimea. In fact, her record label is Warner Music Russia, a Russian branch of the American Warner Music Group.
At the same time, she participates in popular Ukrainian TV programs like Dancing with the Stars and Kvartal 95 on the 1+1 channel and receives local awards. On television, she speaks both Ukrainian and Russian and claims she is a patriot of Ukraine and that by performing in Russia she tries to bring peace.
Maruv’s performances are often colored with eroticism. In her videos and live performances, Korsun draws on her experience working in a strip club during her student years.
And this the second time she has gotten into controversy related to Ukrainian-Russian relations. Having won the Ukrainian national selection for the Eurovision Song Contest in 2019, Maruv refused to sign a contract that required her to stop giving concerts in Russia before Eurovision and for three months after. Other national selection finalists followed suit. As a result, Ukraine was forced to withdraw from the competition entirely.
