Pet Shop Boys release song about Navalny's poisoning as Russia holds parliamentary elections

British pop duo Pet Shop Boys have posted a new song, "A Top Secret Washing Machine," on their YouTube channel, with its release timed to coincide with Russia's State Duma elections.

The video's description quotes remarks Alexei Navalny made at a Moscow court in February 2021, shortly after he returned from Germany, where he had been treated following his poisoning with the nerve agent Novichok. He was subsequently sentenced on fabricated charges and sent to a penal colony, where he died three years later after being poisoned again, this time with the substance epibatidine.

In the quoted remarks, Navalny said Vladimir Putin had never taken part in debates or elections, and that his only method of fighting opponents was attempting to kill them. Navalny predicted that history would remember Putin not as a great geopolitical leader but as a poisoner.

The song's message

The song addresses the 2020 incident in which FSB officers entered Navalny's hotel room in Tomsk and applied Novichok to his underwear. Its lyrics repeatedly ask who washes Putin's underpants and keeps his secrets, while questioning whether he sleeps easily given the possibility of nightmares about a prison cell. The song concludes that Putin will likely escape any consequences, just as Stalin and Peter the Great did, though it suggests his secrets will remain hidden only until an eventual reckoning.

Pet Shop Boys have repeatedly addressed Russian historical themes in their work. In 2023 they released a video called "Living in the Past," comparing Putin to Joseph Stalin; in 2024 they released "Dancing Star," dedicated to dancer Rudolf Nureyev; and in 2025 they put out "Hymn," in memory of Navalny.