Released by Ligalize, the track dropped on Monday, just three days after the Justice Ministry added the musician’s name to its list of ‘foreign agents’.

The track’s title—Vsemirnye—plays on the Russian words for ‘worldwide’ and ‘peaceful’, with the song set to feature on a forthcoming album produced by TMT Music, a Dutch-Lithuanian label founded to give a voice to Russian and Belarusian musicians silenced by their regimes.

In a statement released on Monday, Ligalize said: “Since I was added to the list of foreign agents, we decided to speed things up and give a worthy New Year’s gift to everyone—friends and foes alike.”

The artist fled Russia in summer of 2023 after recording another anti-war song, ‘Mir! Vashemu! Domu!’.

Ligalize, who currently resides in Lithuania, has described the ‘foreign agent’ label as an “honor”.

He added: “Individuals [labeled foreign agents] embody the intelligence, integrity and conscience of a better Russia. They speak the truth about what’s happening and stand for universal human values.”