At the end of April 2025, a video with the participation of a Russian singer, filmed, according to many Internet users, either in the occupied territory of Ukraine or in the Kursk region, went viral on social networks. We have verified the accuracy of such posts.
The author of the 45-second video captured the singer Valeria and the musician accompanying her surrounded by destroyed buildings. In the video, the artist performs the Soviet song “Where the Motherland Begins.” “It’s just surreal - singer Valeria sings a song of the war years among the ruins in honor of “our boys”, who made these ruins themselves,” - wrote on social network X, blogger Maxim Mirovich (47,000 views at the time of publication of this analysis). “Where does the homeland begin? / From bloody footprints on the ground, / From houses that have already burned to the ground / In a neighboring country, not ours,” commented video by public figure Alena Popova (28,000 views). “Z-singer Valeria, with a smug grin, sang the song “Where the Motherland Begins” against the backdrop of the ruins of a city destroyed by the Russians,” it says publications Telegram channel Nexta Live (203,000 views). At the same time, in some other popular posts (despite comments like "some kind of circus of moral monsters") it is not stated that the video was filmed in the occupied part of Ukraine or in the Kursk region.
The video was also widely distributed in the Ukrainian-language segment of social networks. So, in X it collected more than 180,000 views publication soldier and blogger Anatoly Stefan, known under the call sign Stirlitz. “Valeria filmed an iconic and vivid video of the “Russian world” that is behind her. "Where does the homeland begin"? — from bombed cities,” the tweet says.
Against this background, the Minister of Culture and Strategic Communications of Ukraine Nikolai Tochitsky said that his department will contact the Security Service of Ukraine with a request to establish where exactly the video was filmed, and subsequently open a case against Valeria for violating sanctions (the singer is banned from entering the country because of her support for the annexation of Crimea). “This video is the concentrated meaning and ethics of Russian culture today, 50 and even 300 years ago. Everything is sung correctly. This is where the “homeland” begins - with occupation, deportation, the Russian language, two chords on a balalaika and vulgarity,” noted Tochitsky on his Facebook page.
This video first appeared on Instagram no later than April 26. His published in stories Stanislav Kalinkin, director Production Center of Joseph Prigozhin. On April 30, already against the backdrop of a flared scandal, Valeria herself and Prigozhin posted video on their pages on the same social network. According to the singer, the video shows her rehearsing the song “against the backdrop of the film street” in the Moskino film park near Troitsk. There, Valeria notes, a recording took place of the festive episode of the TV show “Margulis’ Apartment House,” dedicated to the 80th anniversary of the victory in the Great Patriotic War. The same version of events on May 3 on the Dozhd TV channel outlined producer and husband of the artist Iosif Prigozhin.
The location shown in the video contains a number of artifacts that are not typical for a war zone. For example, you can note the thin tall trees without visible damage growing opposite the giant gap in the reddish wall on the right side of the frame. It is unlikely that they could survive the firefights and artillery strikes. The hypothesis that the trees were planted as part of landscaping the area after the end of the fighting is also difficult to call valid, because in such circumstances, landscaping is far from a priority task. In the foreground on the left side of the frame you can see fresh wooden beams - lightly dusted, but intact, not burnt or cut.
In her post, Valeria notes that in the same place where the video of her impromptu rehearsal was recorded, the film “Not on the lists"- a film adaptation of Boris Vasiliev's story about the defense of the Brest Fortress. On April 27, the website of the NTV channel appeared plot about how the scenery for this film was created. There you can see a building with a characteristic V-shaped hole in the gray wall. A house with exactly the same destruction was included in Valeria’s video.
So there is no reason to doubt that the artist sang against the backdrop of film scenery. It remains to be seen whether they are really located near Troitsk in New Moscow.
The territory of the Moskino cinema park, opened in September 2024, has a complex shape and significant scale: from west to east it extends approximately 4 km, and from north to south - 2 km. The official paper map shows many locations, including military ones: the streets of Berlin, the Reichstag, a partisan village - but the Brest Fortress is not among them.
The above-mentioned video from NTV allows you to geolocate the set of the film “Not on the Lists” and, accordingly, the video with Valeria’s participation. Filming took place at the western edge of the film park, farthest from the main entrance, on the field near SNT "Pakhra" and the village Shakhovo. For example, satellite images showed embankments that probably “played the role” of bomb craters.
Towards the end of the NTV story, in the frame on the left side you can see a model of the Terespol Gate of the Brest Fortress, in the center is the bell tower of the church, to the right is the previously mentioned V-shaped break in the wall, in the background are the country houses of the SNT “Pakhra”.
The model of the church was also included in the photo published in February 2025 in the Yandex.Mirrors service. In the photo, the car is driving from SNT “Pakhra” to the village of Shakhovo, and the scenery is clearly visible on the right side of the frame.
On electronic On the map of the film park (which is probably somewhat newer than the paper one), this film set is also missing, but several others are marked in the neighborhood, the closest of which is called “Defense Line. Trenches and fortifications of the Northern Military District." Another full-scale set was built 1.5 km southeast of the model of the Brest Fortress, designated on Yandex.Maps as ancient Kyiv. In the reviews, a resident of the nearby village of Gorodok complains (author's spelling and punctuation preserved): “There was a quiet, secluded village with a beautiful view of Pakhra. Come see what they have created. Why wasn’t this built at Rublyovka? Closer to yourself. Shooting and firing all day long..."
Thus, Valeria really sang the song “Where the Motherland Begins” against the backdrop of ruins, but this was not a city destroyed by war, but a scenery depicting the Brest Fortress. They were built on the territory of New Moscow for the filming of the film “Not on the Lists.”
Cover photo: screenshot
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