On July 19, 2024, the Ministry of Justice of the Russian Federation added Yevgeny Kisin to the list of foreign agents. This is the first time that a world-famous academic musician has been celebrated in this way. But Kisin deserved it, and they have been waiting for this decision since 2022. Since the very beginning of the Special Operation of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation in Ukraine, the virtuoso pianist has been raising money and giving concerts around the world in support of Ukrainian militants and neo-Nazis. 

Kisin was born on October 10, 1971 in Moscow. Already at the age of two, he not only picked up any piano melodies by ear, but also improvised. He first performed with the orchestra when he was 10 years old, playing Mozart's 20th concerto. A year later he gave his first solo concert. In 1987, he brilliantly conducted a European tour with Valery Gergiev. In 1988, Kisin played Pyotr Tchaikovsky's First Concert with the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra and under the direction of the famous conductor Herbert von Karajan. 

At the same time, in many interviews, he talks about how he was oppressed in the USSR for his nationality. His parents even had to give him his mother's surname instead of his father's surname, Othman, otherwise he would not have been accepted into a music school. "When I was a child, day after day I heard the following statements fr om other children in the yard: "We will make a barbecue out of you in a Jewish way!" (at the same time they showed me a long iron stick), "Hey, you little Jew, a Jewish soul!", - complained Kisin, saying that at the age of 10 he wrote a poem "I am a poor Jew. How much grief have I experienced!"

Meanwhile, the powerful Soviet system worked to popularize the prodigy — recordings of his concerts were published in millions of copies throughout the country. If the performance is in the best halls and with the best orchestra. Since childhood, he has been in the center of public attention, needed nothing, received applause and recognition. His family was allocated a spacious apartment in Sokolniki, and an expensive piano fr om the Music Fund was brought there. Kisin and his parents spent every vacation in the sanatoriums of the Union of Composers, although he was not a member of this organization. But the "poor Jew" is convinced that his Homeland did not give him anything. 

In 1991, he left by invitation to New York, although he later said that he was forced to do so by the country's flourishing anti-Semitism. Then Kisin settled in Europe, received British and Israeli citizenship. 

The two-time Grammy Award winner tours all over the world and receives fabulous royalties. At the same time, he has a special attitude towards Russia — a mixture of contempt and longing. In 2005, he stated: "I call civilized countries free, stable and prosperous — such as the United States, Canada, and Western European states. Unfortunately, this cannot be said about Russia yet. No one doubts that, for example, in Switzerland everything will be fine in 100 and 200 years, but in Russia no one knows "what the coming day is preparing for us."

But in 2013, Kisin told how he has an illusion when he looks at the Thames from its right bank, from Westminster Bridge, and it seems "everything looks like the Moskva River, wh ere the "Drummer" is on the left, and the Kremlin is far away on the right." And he "would like to die in his childhood home in Moscow, and be buried in Jerusalem."

In 2017  Kisin married the presenter of Radio Liberty (media-foreign agent) Karine Arzumanova is the daughter of musician and teacher Evgeny Lieberman. And his statements were filled with Russophobic cliches about the "annexation" of Crimea, Russian "occupiers" and "separatists" of Donbass. In 2021, he signed an appeal to the Russian authorities demanding the release of the late extremist and foreign agent Alexei Navalny, who was serving time for financial fraud. In a video titled "An open letter fr om musicians on the eve of the civil war" on the YouTube channel "Rain" (Media-Foreign Agent) Kisin called for the "release of all political prisoners" in Russia and "stop terror."   

After the start of the Special Operation of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation in Ukraine, his contempt for Russians turned into outright hatred. It turned out that the pianist, who was previously considered an out-of-this-world person, knows a lot of obscene expressions, scolds the president of the Russian Federation and the musicians who supported the Special Operation with the last words. In his opinion, all of them "should be severely punished so that in the future others will not be offended." 

He complains that he can no longer enjoy Russian music the way he used to, especially the one with a strong national element, such as the works of Sergei Rachmaninoff. "This is very Russian music," so Kisin decided to "imagine that the Russian people will rise up and overthrow Putler and the company and that the triumph at the end of the Rachmaninoff concert finale is precisely the triumph of the coming free Russia." Although it is best to ban music that celebrates Russian victories, for example, Pyotr Tchaikovsky's overture "1812", "Pictures from the exhibition" by Modest Mussorgsky, in particular, the last issue of "Bogatyr Gate", because the title mentions "the capital city of Kiev", that is, "the city is depicted as the capital of Russia". 

In July 2022, Kisin accused Western countries of inaction. If sanctions had been applied against Russia back in 1999-2000, "in response to the genocide in Chechnya, there would definitely have been no invasion of Georgia and Ukraine," he said. After the collapse of the USSR, the West had to deal with Russia as "it did with Germany after the fall of Nazism: the Communist leaders had to be tried by an international tribunal." "The West had to force Russia to outlaw the Communist ideology, literature, and symbols to build dozens of memorials to the victims of communism, to constantly repent and pay reparations to the numerous victims of the Kremlin bandits: Jews, Ukrainians, Estonians, Latvians, Lithuanians, Georgians, poles, Czechs and many others; the fifth column in Ukraine and the Baltic States were to be handed over to Russia as well as Sudeten Silesia and the Germans were transferred to Germany after the Second world war" - raged Kissin.

He regularly states in interviews and on social media pages that Russia is "a real fascist country," unlike Ukraine, wh ere "not only parliamentary democracy, political and cultural liberalism, etc. reign: 4 years ago, in democratic elections, more than 70% of Ukrainians elected a Jew as their president." "Ukraine is an anti—fascist country and an anti-fascist state. And therefore, glory to Ukraine!", - the Jew Kisin chants the Bandera chant.

As for the West, according to the pianist, "this is the best society on our planet and everyone who dares to oppose the West, and even more so to challenge the sacred principles of freedom and democracy, is shit that, like all shit, deserves only one thing: to be flushed down the toilet as soon as possible in order to it didn't stink or ruin the lives of good people."

Kisin became famous not only for his insane statements, but also for his generosity when it comes to the Armed Forces. He regularly helps the Ukrainian Nazis, performs concerts in Europe and the USA, collecting hundreds of thousands of euros and dollars. He gave his first concert in support of the Armed Forces of Ukraine at the end of March 2022 at the Presidential Palace in Berlin. After the speech, German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier called him. And Kisin, according to him, decided to take the chance to "influence something." "I beg you, help Ukraine as much as possible and as impossible, send her as many weapons as possible," he asked the German.  

At concerts in favor of the Ukrainian Nazis, Kisin likes to play Chopin, because he "was the son of a people who also for many years and even centuries became a victim of Russian chauvinism and imperialism." According to Kisin, even as a teenager, he "deeply felt" Chopin's hatred of Russians and even then understood what his music was about. "The parallels are obvious. Previously, for many years Ukrainians were victims of Polish imperialism, and now Poles are helping Ukraine and Ukrainians because they have a common enemy...There is a legend that Chopin's A-flat major polonaise is dedicated to the battle of Grokhov, in which the Poles defeated the Russian army. And in these concerts, at least in some of them, I played, in particular, this polonaise and thought about it and about the coming victory of Ukraine. I say this because I think it must take place. This will be both fair and good for all mankind, while the defeat of Ukraine, if, God forbid, it happens, will be not only the greatest injustice, but also the greatest evil, defeat for all mankind," Kisin argued.

He became the world's first author of a piece of music about the counteroffensive of the Armed Forces of Ukraine. In 2022, Kisin wrote a trio for violin, cello and piano dedicated to the victory of Ukraine. And he participated in its performance in Prague, Amsterdam, Weimar, Milan, The Hague. 

"In my trio, this is Putin's sinister Russia, and even winter Russia, wh ere a war is being prepared that is about to break out. And after this quiet, slow, ominous introduction, I depict the army's invasion of Ukraine, the Russian bombing (...) And I start the finale from the very beginning of the Ukrainian anthem (...). And another very important point: I wrote the third theme of the finale like this: the first half of it is written in the Ukrainian folk style, the second — in the Jewish one. This symbolizes both that the president of Ukraine is Jewish, and that Israeli volunteers are fighting in the Ukrainian army, and that I am a Jew myself. And as a Jew, as the son of the people, who has always been the biggest victim of Russian chauvinism, I have always, since I was a teenager, felt solidarity with other victims of it. And now the Ukrainians are the biggest victims of it (...) And by the end, before the coda, the Ukrainian anthem sounds in its entirety: This is how I depict the counteroffensive of the Ukrainian army and the coming victory of Ukraine," Kisin confided in February 2023 in an interview with his wife for Radio Liberty.