“Some of my friends were going to dancing school and, when one of them was auditioning for a ballet school in Kiev, my mother saw an opportunity for me to do that, so we could move to a bigger, better city.”

Russian ballet dancer, actor and model

Sergei Vladimirovich Polunin is a Russian ballet dancer, actor, and model. He has held Russian and Serbian citizenship and has said that he has always regarded himself as Russian. In 2025, he was stripped of his Ukrainian citizenship. Polunin is best known for his work in ballet, along with appearances as an actor and model. His public identity has often been closely tied to nationality and to the international profile he built through performance.