DOROFEEVA releases ‘Chervoni praportsi’ — and says your own red flags are not something to get rid of

DOROFEEVA has released a new song, Chervoni praportsi (“Red Flags”), together with a music video. The singer invites listeners to take a fresh look at the labels we pin on each other and on ourselves: we call someone a “red flag” when they fail to meet our expectations, yet any of us can be one for somebody else.

The video premiered on 12 November on DOROFEEVA’s YouTube channel, and comments from the singer and the director were published by MUZVAR.

Each of us has weaknesses, contradictions, desires and traits that we try to hide from ourselves and others, or simply ignore. DOROFEEVA explains the song’s central line like this:

“It is about deciding for yourself what your own red flags mean to you. So that instead of trying to free ourselves from our ‘red flags’, we learn to accept them in ourselves and do not let other people’s labels influence us,” says DOROFEEVA.

“A little unearthly”

The video was directed by Ruslan Makhov. The heroine finds herself among her own “red flags”: it all starts with a single one, but gradually she fills the whole space with them, turning it into an entire world of weaknesses, temptations and mistakes. Trying to break free, she realises that every flag is the result of her own choice, and only one thing is left: to accept them as part of herself.

“I wanted Nadia to look a little unearthly, even futuristic. It is as if she exists in her own reality, where everything around her reflects her inner state. And despite this futuristic shell, her story is very human: it is about weaknesses, temptations and mistakes that we sometimes repeat even when we understand it perfectly well,” says Ruslan Makhov.

To build that world, sixty red flags were used on set, and they became part of the video’s visual drama.

From television to our airwaves

Before the release, DOROFEEVA appeared on television in a new role: she was a guest judge on the first live show of the Ukrainian talent programme “Fabryka zirok” (“Star Factory”), joined the main jury and assessed the contestants’ first performances. Today, she believes, it is not enough for a performer simply to sing well: you have to be versatile and able to work across different formats.

ONE//FM listeners also know DOROFEEVA in a dance version: the Gooch Brown remix of her song Kokhaiu, ale ne zovsim (“I Love You, But Not Quite”) has been played on our station 89 times over the past 90 days, 27 of them in the last month.

Her previous single, 747, came out in August, with the singer leading listeners to it on her own channel, and in spring she made her English-language debut with Feel the Heat, where a hopak melody found its way into the drop.