The Czech Republic’s Mikolas Josef delivered his country’s best result ever with his self-penned song “Lie To Me”. Meanwhile, Russian singer UrKiss released a song titled “Lish’ Ona” (which means “Only Her”) in April…and it sounds strikingly similar to Mikolas’ Eurovision entry.

UrKiss’ “Lish’ Ona” was first performed at a concert in early April 2018 and was subsequently performed on various television shows. The song first gained big exposure during the television festival Zvezdy Russkogo Radio in April.

The song doesn’t just sound like “Lie To Me”: the performance also mirrors Mikolas’ exact movements during his performance in the Ukrainian national final back in February. It even includes the backpack dance!

The performance has experienced a huge backlash as everyone with eyes and ears can see the resemblance between the two performances. And while UrKiss never credited Mikolas as the writer or original performer with a public thank you or nod, he DID include his name in the credits of a TV performance (at the Muz TV Awards), suggesting he may have bought the rights.

UrKiss is already a controversial name on the Russian music scene owing to another plagiarism scandal. He was accused of plagiarising the song “Meduza” by the singer Matrang back in March of this year. The song went into rotation without Matrang being credited according to media outlet Super.ru.

Even more controversially, UrKiss sang “Lish’ Ona” once again during the Muz-TV Awards last week and the RU.TV Awards two weeks ago. The award shows are both regarded as two of the most important Russian award shows on television.

The controversial aspect of these performances was that UrKiss, who’s real name is Yuri Kiselyov, is not a household name in Russia and his father Vladimir Kiselyov has a 78% share of the Russian Media Group, which owns both television channels.

Although the song has not been released on iTunes or Spotify, the Russkoe Radio performance on YouTube on UrKiss’ official channel has advertisements on it, which means he is potentially making money from Mikolas’ work. Of course, if he did but the rights to the song as hinted by the credits at the end of one of the music shows, then that’s fine.

Wiwibloggs reached out to Mikolas and his management for a reaction prior to publishing this article. They told us that they will start conversations with UrKiss’ people after they review the performances and Mikolas will release a statement soon.

Additional reporting by Cinan

Picture credits: UrKiss Instagram