Prima ballerina Olga Smirnova has quit the Bolshoi in Moscow to join the Dutch National Ballet, it was announced Wednesday, making her the first Russian to quit the fabled company over the war in Ukraine.
"Smirnova was outspoken in her recent denouncement of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, which is making it untenable for her to work in her native country," the Dutch company said in a statement.
Smirnova is one of the biggest stars of the Bolshoi and had already expressed her opposition to the war on messaging app Telegram earlier this month.
"I am against war with all the fibres of my soul," she wrote. "It is not only about every other Russian perhaps having relatives or friends living in Ukraine, or about my grandfather being Ukrainian...It is that we continue to live as if this were the 20th century."
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