Wife of Putin official sparks outrage with Holocaust-themed ice routine

Tatiana Navka, the wife of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s spokesman Dmitry Peskov, has caused uproar by performing a Holocaust-themed ice skating routine on Russian TV.

Ms Navka, who is a former Olympic ice dancer, performed the routine together with actor Andrei Burkovsky on the reality television show Ice Age.

The routine saw the pair don striped uniforms of concentration camp victims, complete with a yellow six-pointed star, and mime shooting at each other.

Ms Navka posted on Instagram that the routine was inspired by the film Life Is Beautiful (1997, dir. Roberto Benigni), which is set in a concentration camp, and claimed that it was a tribute.

“Our children need to… remember that terrible time, which I hope, God willing, they will never know,” she wrote.

Although the show’s judges awarded top marks, the routine sparked outrage on social media and split opinion at Russia’s media outlets, with many calling for an official apology by the pair and others levelling criticism against Channel One for broadcasting the ice dance.

This is not the first such scandal to arise on Russian reality TV – in April, actor Alexander Petrov came under fire when he dressed as a Nazi soldier for a routine on the TV show Dancing with the Stars.

Source: BBC News