Legendary ballet dancer Mikhail Baryshnikov has decried Russian President Vladimir Putin's "world of fear" and said true Russian values will live on "despite all your bans".
Along with detective fiction writer Boris Akunin and prominent economist Sergei Guriev, Mr Baryshnikov in March launched a fundraising charity in support of Ukraine called True Russia.
"People like us brought more honour to the Russian world than all your not-very-precise precision-guided munitions," the iconic dancer, who famously defected to Canada in 1974, said in an open letter to Mr Putin.
"Your Russian world, the world of fear, the world in which they burn Ukrainian textbooks, will not live on as long as there are people like us - the true Russians immunised against this plague in our childhood," he added.
"And our world will live on despite all your bans," said 74-year-old Mr Baryshnikov, who was born in Latvia to Russian parents.
"We know how to keep the values of a true Russian world. And yours will die from its own fears unless it wakes up."
Mr Baryshnikov posted the letter after Moscow blocked the website of True Russia last month.
The project has already fund-raised more than €1.2 million.
