A Russian actor slit his wrists in front of an audience in protest at the firing of the theater’s director for opposing the war in Ukraine.
Actor Artur Shuvalov announced to the audience at the theater in Ulan-Ude, Eastern Siberia, that the show’s bosses had “harassed” him and withheld him for supporting the previous director Sergei Levitsky.
Artur, who is said to be suffering from cancersuddenly took a knife out of his pocket and revealed that his wife who was also an actor on the show has also been fired.
Proclaiming that the theater’s management team was “responsible” for his death, he began slashing the knife across his wrists, Mail Online reports.
He said: ‘Throughout the year they have tried to fire me from the theater, to humiliate me, to deprive me of work and money.
“Today they signed a statement, they fired my wife Svetlana Polyanskaya.
‘I don’t want to put up with it. But I have no more strength and no choice.’
He added: ‘I don’t want to hear that artists are ‘representatives of the oldest professions’.
And I believe that our audience is worthy of smart direction, and not as our artistic director says.
“Please forgive me one more time. I’m tired. I have no choice anymore. I want to say only one thing: Vyacheslav Mikhailovich Dyachenko [artistic director]Natalya Nikolaevna Svetozarova [theater director]these people are responsible for my death.’
The audience watched in horror as other cast members rushed to help the actor.
Artur was taken to hospital and is said to be in stable condition.
Since the beginning of Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, the Kremlin has imposed censorship laws against ‘discrediting the Russian armed forces’.
A number of prominent art figures lost their jobs after criticizing the war.
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