Ukrainian musician Kirill Bledny has revealed that he has been barred from entering the European Union for publicly disparaging the Polish language last year. Amid a massive backlash from Poles, the frontman of Poshlaya Molly (Vulgar Molly) apologized and claimed that his comments had been made in jest.

The Ukrainian band, whose songs are mainly in Russian, has enjoyed a certain degree of popularity among young audiences in Russia in recent years. Following the escalation of the Russia-Ukraine conflict in February 2022, the musicians denounced Moscow’s actions, left the country and canceled all upcoming Poshlaya Molly concerts there.

In an interview published on Thursday by the Russian-language outlet Flow, Bledny, whose real last name is Timoshenko, doubled down on his assertion that his rant was a “bad joke.” When asked if his group could still hold concerts in Poland, the 27-year-old said that he’d been barred from entry into the whole of the EU for ten tears.

“It’s f**ked up, I know. [So f**ked up] that it’s even funny,” the artist added.

Bledny recounted how he had to quickly depart Poland in the wake of the scandal, and eventually moved to Georgia. Sometime later, the singer, who had been planning to record an album in Vilnius, attempted to enter Lithuania and was stopped at the border, he revealed. After hours of waiting, an official notified Bledny that he had been barred from entering the EU for three years, according to the interview.

When the artist tried to appeal the decision, he received a document stating that the ban had been extended to ten years, he recalled.

Last November, Bledny posted a short video clip, full of expletives, in which he said: “You know what annoys me in Poland? The Polish language f**king annoys me!”

“I don’t understand why you would speak this f**k-face language when you have the Russian language,” he went on. The singer suggested that Poles should “just learn Russian and f**king speak a normal language.”

“I don’t get it. There’s the Russian Empire – just join it, for f**ck’s sake, join it as you did before,” he ranted.

Bledny's remarks touched on a sensitive historical issue. In the late 18th century, a weakened Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth was subjected to a series of partitions by Austria, Prussia and the Russian Empire, resulting in the complete extinction of Polish statehood. Large swaths of Polish lands were integrated into the Russian Empire, remaining part of it until its collapse following the 1917 revolution.