Zemfira wrote one of Russian pop’s most devastating songs about the war. She turned 50 this week in Paris, where her 2025 setlists had room for the newer songs, never ‘It’s midnight in Mariupol.’

Russian pop singer Zemfira turned 50 this week, marking the occasion in Paris rather than Moscow, where she left in 2022 after releasing 'Myaso,' a stark song about the invasion of Ukraine that helped earn her Russia's 'foreign agent' label. Critic Lev Gankin reviews her seven post-invasion releases for Meduza, tracing a shift from the frenzied directness of 'Myaso' to more personal, French-inflected material like 'Colette' and a reworked 'Jim Beam.'

The review notes recurring war references throughout — cities burning, red buttons, a Ukrainian sopilka woven into the arrangement of 'PODNHA' — alongside detours into pure melodicism and even a theatrical soundtrack. Zemfira, who gives no interviews, is characterized throughout by what her music implies rather than anything she has said.

The full dispatch is available from the source below.