MOSCOW (AFP).- Popular Russian singer and pro-Kremlin lawmaker Iosif Kobzon -- sometimes called "the Soviet Frank Sinatra" -- died aged 80 on Thursday.

Born in Ukraine's Donbass region to Jewish parents, Kobzon began his career in 1959 and was most popular in the 1970s and 80s.

Kobzon won a competition to perform in front of Stalin in the Kremlin with a children's choir as a 10-year-old boy. He also performed in front of Soviet leaders Nikita Khrushchev and Leonid Brezhnev.

No major concert on Russian national holidays would take place without Kobzon, who also entertained Soviet soldiers in Afghanistan in the 1980s and Russian troops in Syria in 2016.

A legend of Soviet patriotic music, Kobzon recorded more than 1,500 songs and held a world record in the number of concerts performed in one day: he once gave 12 concerts in a single day spending more than 13 hours on stage.

With his velvety baritone voice, Kobzon achieved wide acclaim with militaristic songs like "Victory Day" and lyrical ballads.

President Vladimir Putin sent a message of condolences to Kobzon's family, the Kremlin said.

The artist was a strong supporter of Moscow's annexation of Crimea and was targeted by EU sanctions in 2015 for performing in separatist eastern Ukraine.

Kiev also blacklisted Kobzon for his stance on the conflict.

'Role in hostage crisis'
Like Sinatra, he had long been dogged with rumours of links to organised crime, although he said he simply met shady figures through his singing.

The United State repeatedly refused him visas.

A former member of the Soviet Communist Party, Kobzon was an MP for the ruling United Russia party since 2003 and became an outspoken supporter of Putin.

In 2013, he asked the Nobel Committee to give the Russian leader the Nobel Peace Prize.

Kobzon claimed he played the role of a negotiator when Chechen militants seized a Moscow theatre and held 800 people hostage in 2012.

The singer said he succeeded in releasing five hostages in the crisis, while 130 others died when Russian special forces filled the building with an unknown gas to neutralise the attackers.

Kobzon suffered from prostate cancer for several years. Despite his calls for Russians to boycott the European Union, he received treatment in Italy which had issued him a medical visa.

Several generations of Russians listened to Kobzon, who was a regular guest on Russian state television's New Year programme.

"His voice was heard from every window, you could not celebrate a single New Year's Eve without him," said an obituary on state-owned website Vesti.ru.


© Agence France-P