Milos Bikovich left the series “White Lotus” after criticism from Ukraine

Serbian and Russian actor Milos Bikovich said on Instagram (owned by Meta, which is considered extremist and banned) that he left the HBO series “White Lotus” due to a “targeted information campaign” against him. On January 25, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine on the social network X criticized HBO for the fact that the channel is collaborating with an actor who “supports Russia from the very beginning of the full-scale invasion.” An HBO rep confirmed “Channel Five”that he was ending his cooperation with Mr. Bikovich and that his role would be changed, but did not specify the reason for this decision.

“Now that a targeted information campaign is being waged against me, external circumstances are beginning to influence creative decisions, which creates an alarming precedent that displaces the essence of creative freedom… My participation in the project has become impossible for reasons beyond creativity, since I am not ready change your principles,” the actor wrote on Instagram.

The character of Milos Bikovic was supposed to appear in the third season of White Lotus. Publication sources Deadline It is reported that Mr. Bikovich had a cameo role in the series, he was supposed to play a Russian yogi named Valentin, who works at the White Lotus Hotel as a “life improvement mentor.”

36-year-old Milos Bikovic is from the Serbian capital Belgrade. With his role in Nikita Mikhalkov’s film “Sunstroke,” which was released in 2014, Mr. Bikovich began his career in Russian cinema. He is known for his roles in the Russian films “Duhless 2”, “Ice”, “Balkan Frontier”, “Slave” and “Hotel Belgrade”, as well as the TV series “Hotel Eleon”, “Grand” and “Wings of the Empire”. In 2019, Milos Bikovich was included in the database of the Ukrainian website “Peacemaker” for visiting Crimea. He was prohibited from entering the territory of Ukraine. In February 2021, the actor received Russian citizenship.

Erdni Kagaltynov