Ukraine has criticized HBO for casting a pro-Putin actor who was awarded a medal of honor by the despot himself for his services to the arts, and has consistently supported its 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 The White Lotus, asking the network: “Dear HBO, do you really support genocide?”
The ministry published a video of 36-year-old Biković shaking hands with Vladimir Putin during a ceremony where he received a top cultural prize.
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.”
The ministry published a video of Biković, 36, (pictured, right) shaking hands with Vladimir Putin (pictured, left) during a ceremony where he received a top cultural prize
His role in White Lotus will be his first in a Western production
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 The White Lotus, created, written and directed by Mike White, and executive produced by White, David Bernad and Mark Kamine, will 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.
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% vote in favor of integration with mainland Russia, based on a claimed 83% turnout.
A graduate of the Faculty of Dramatic Arts at the University of the Arts in Belgrade, Serbia, Biković has almost exclusively starred in Russian or Serbian TV, film and theater productions.
Ukraine lashed out at HBO for casting the pro-Putin actor
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.
MailOnline has contacted HBO and Biković’s agents at Artist International Group for comment.