Ukraine's ambassador to Britain makes an unprecedented intervention today to attack the 'betrayal' of allowing Russian soprano Anna Netrebko to perform in London.
War hero Valerii Zaluzhnyi, known as the 'Iron General', warns that her appearance at the Royal Opera House on Thursday is 'a test' by Vladimir Putin of Kyiv's 'closest and most devoted ally'.
In an extraordinarily emotive appeal to Britain, he writes in an article for the Daily Mail: 'The Kremlin pays close attention to such signals.
'Will we allow Putin to use art as a curtain to hide his crimes? Will we allow his closest allies to stand on the world's stages as if nothing has happened?'
Mr Zaluzhnyi says the voice of the soprano 'for decades shielded a dictator' and this week it will 'drown out the real cries' of children and mothers killed every night by Putin.
