Concerts by Modern Talking's Dieter Bohlen cancelled in Lithuania over his remarks about Russia

Concerts announced earlier this week featuring well-known German musician Dieter Bohlen, a former member of the duo Modern Talking, have been cancelled in Lithuania.

Source: Lithuanian public broadcaster LRT, as reported by European Pravda

Details: The singer and composer, 72, and his band Blue System had been due to perform in Klaipėda on 20 November and in Kaunas on 21 November.

But on Friday, links to these events disappeared from the ticketing system, and information about them is no longer available on the websites of either arena.

Ticket distributors confirmed to LRT that ticket sales for these concerts would not be going ahead.

"Yes, the concert in Kaunas has been cancelled," Mantas Vedrickas, events manager at the Žalgiris Arena, told LRT.lt. "We consulted with the organisers and agreed that such an event should not take place at our arena."

The reason for the cancellation, although not publicly stated, may be connected to excerpts from recent interviews by Bohlen that have been circulating online.

In the interviews, the musician was critical of the cooling of relations between Germany and Russia, called for energy resources to be purchased from Russia, and insisted that Russia and Germany had been a dream team.

Three years ago he criticised Western sanctions against Russia, and recently he claimed that "Ukraine has no chance whatsoever against Russia."

Background:

• Lithuania has proposed introducing a five-year entry ban for artists who have performed in Russia or Belarus.
• On 23 February, Vilnius Mayor Valdas Benkunskas addressed the Seimas Committee on National Security and Defence with a proposal to make it illegal for musicians who perform in Russia and Belarus to give concerts in Lithuania.

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