The White Lotus casts Julian Kostov to replace Milos Bikovic who was fired from season 3 following pressure from Ukraine over his pro-Putin stance

Julian Kostov has been picked to replace Milos Bikovic in season 3 of The White Lotus after the original season 3 star was fired following pressure from Ukraine over his pro-Putin stance.

The 34-year-old Bulgarian actor has been added to the cast to portray a Russian character, just days after 36-year-old Serbian actor Bikovic was fired by HBO.

Season three will soon begin filming around Koh Samui, Phuket and Bangkok, while the anthology series will follow a new group of guests at another White Lotus hotel, this time based in Thailand.

Kostov joins quite an all-star cast, including Leslie Bibb, Parker Posey, Patrick Schwarzenegger, Carrie Coon, Francesca Corney and returning season 1 cast member Natasha Rothwell.

He previously starred in 2017’s Another Mother’s Son, 2020’s Search And Destroy and Code Red? from 2013.

Meanwhile, Bikovic recently broke his silence on his dismissal over his pro-Putin stance, saying the move set a “disturbing precedent” by the network.

He was set to star in the blockbuster show’s highly anticipated third season, until Ukraine complained about his political beliefs.

HBO, which surrendered to Ukraine, fired him.

In an Instagram post Saturday, he claims he is the victim of a “targeted campaign.”

Biković was believed to have been cast in the role of Russian Valentin, a charming yogi and the hotel’s ‘Life Enhancement Mentor’, Deadline reports.

‘I grew up in a war-torn country. At the age of 11, I spent days and nights in shelters while my home country and hometown were bombed. I could never wish such devastation on anyone,” the Serbian actor wrote on Instagram.

Bikovic said he wished active conflicts everywhere would “stop and the principles of love would prevail.”

“Today a targeted campaign has been unleashed against me, seemingly as an external maneuver to influence decisions that could set a disturbing precedent that overshadows the essence of artistic freedom,” Biković wrote.

He said: ‘The result of such a story is the triumph of absurdity and the defeat of art.’

In his speech, Bikovic said: “I was honored to be chosen to be part of White Lotus, a TV series that I hold in high regard and which includes colleagues whom I deeply respect .’

“However, my participation is not possible for reasons beyond art, and I will not bow to any narrative that seeks to compromise my integrity,” he added.

This comes just weeks after Ukraine in January snubbed HBO for casting the pro-Putin actor, who was awarded a medal of honor by the despot himself for his services to the arts and who has consistently supported his invasive actions against Ukraine and Crimea.

Ukraine’s Foreign Ministry brutally called out HBO for its decision to cast Serbian actor Miloš Biković in the upcoming third season of the hit series.

At the time, the ministry published a video of Biković shaking hands with Vladimir Putin during a ceremony where he received a top cultural award.

He was awarded the Pushkin Medal, awarded to both Russian citizens and foreigners for achievements in the fields of arts and culture, education, humanities and literature, in 2018 at a ceremony at the Kremlin, and in 2021 he was granted Russian citizenship.

Biković, a citizen of Serbia and Russia, said at the time: “It is a great honor to say today: Russia is my homeland.”

He added that he was “an active member of Russian society.”

A graduate of the Faculty of Dramatic Arts at the University of the Arts in Belgrade, Serbia, Biković has acted almost exclusively in dozens of Russian or Serbian TV, film and theater productions throughout his twenty-year career.

His role in White Lotus, created, written and directed by Mike White, and executive produced by White, David Bernad and Mark Kamine, would be Biković’s first in a Western production.

He is represented by Chris Prapha and Deanna Russo Clark at Artist International Group and Marina Leonova at SV Casting in Russia.

AFP reported that Biković claimed in 2019 that he had been denied entry to Ukraine for national security reasons.

Ukraine claims he supports Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and says he has filmed TV shows in Crimea, which was illegally annexed by Putin’s forces in 2014.

“Dear HBO, do you really support genocide?” they said, putting pressure on the network to drop the actor.

A resurfaced clip showed Biković telling a reporter that he supported the annexation. To a broad question about Crimea, he said: “It’s different from the fact that Russians live there.”

Asked if this was enough reason for Russia to “take it away and assign it to itself,” the actor said: “(Crimeans) do it themselves, like the referendum.”

Biković was referring to a heavily contested referendum that took place after Russia invaded Crimea, previously a part of Ukraine that was largely autonomous of the nation.

Russian forces captured key cities in Crimea in late February 2014, following pro-Russian demonstrations that led to the ouster of then-President Viktor Yanukovych.

The referendum, held after Russian troops arrived, officially resulted in a 97 percent vote in favor of integration with mainland Russia, based on a claimed 83 percent turnout.

But international observers said the referendum, which was used to officially justify the formal annexation of Crimea on March 18, 2014, just two days after the referendum, had been widely manipulated.

Military observers from the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE), which helps monitor elections around the world to ensure their validity, said they were forced to turn away from Crimea after Russian forces fired warning shots at had fired at them.

The UN also heavily criticized Russia at the time for encouraging the presence of paramilitaries and unidentifiable soldiers around election booths.

A US official said at the time that there was “concrete evidence” that referendum ballots had arrived pre-marked.

Just eight years later, Russia used a similar claim to protect ethnic Russians as justification for invading the rest of Ukraine.

Ny Breakingl.com has contacted HBO and Biković’s agents at Artist International Group for comment.