Briefly

Foreign Minister Andriy Sybiha and Minister of Culture and Strategic Communications Tetiana Berezhna have urged the organizers of the Venice Biennale not to allow Russia to participate. The reason — the risk of turning a prestigious artistic platform into an instrument for normalizing aggression and whitewashing war crimes against Ukraine.

Why this matters now

The Biennale’s stance is shifting at a moment when Russia continues the war and rejects dialogue. For Ukraine, admitting the aggressor state to one of the world’s most influential cultural institutions is not just an artistic debate — it is a question of symbolic legitimization. While attention is focused on returns, the question is whether international platforms will remain a barrier against propaganda or become arenas for its concealment.

Facts and scale of losses

The ministries’ statement emphasizes the massive losses to Ukrainian culture: since the start of the full-scale invasion at least 346 artists and 132 media professionals have been killed, more than 1,707 heritage sites and 2,503 cultural infrastructure sites have been destroyed or damaged, of which 558 are completely destroyed. According to the ministries, over 35,000 museum items have been illegally removed to temporarily occupied territories, and more than 2.1 million items are at risk.

Legal and moral grounds for objection

The ministers recall the rules of the Hague Convention of 1954 on the Protection of Cultural Property in the Event of Armed Conflict: the deliberate destruction and removal of cultural property violates international humanitarian law. Within this legal framework, cultural participation by the aggressor state on prestigious platforms can be seen not just as an artistic gesture but as a political signal.

"Under such circumstances any changes of policy or easing of restrictions have no real basis, and could only send a dangerous signal of support for the aggression, toleration of Russian war crimes and the normalization of the genocidal policies of the Russian occupiers"

— Andriy Sybiha, Minister of Foreign Affairs; Tetiana Berezhna, Minister of Culture and Strategic Communications

Context: culture as an instrument of influence

The Ukrainian statement refers not only to destruction and material losses (losses to the cultural sector exceed $4.2 billion, and the total industry losses — more than $31 billion), but also to the systemic practice of using culture in politics. Relevant examples include well-known cases in which representatives of Russian institutions openly described international cultural projects as an element of external strategy. This strengthens Kyiv’s argument that admitting the Russian Federation could become part of a broader operation to legitimize the aggression.

What Ukraine is asking for

Kyiv calls on the organizers to reconsider the decision to readmit Russia to the Biennale and to uphold the principled position of 27 February 2022, when the organizers condemned the aggression. The argument is to prevent the politicization of cultural platforms and to protect their neutrality as spaces for critical art, not for state propaganda.

Also read: how during the occupation in Ivankiv the paintings of Maria Prymachenko were saved (LIGA.net).

Consequences and outlook

The organizers’ decision on the Venice Biennale will have a more symbolic than purely artistic effect: it is a test of whether international institutions are willing to act as a barrier against normalizing the aggressor. If the Biennale allows the return without clear guarantees of separating the artistic community from state apparatuses, it will set a precedent for other platforms — sporting, cultural and scientific.

Now it is up to the organizers: will they maintain the principle of neutrality and protect culture from instrumentalization — or will they take a path that risks turning the artistic arena into a platform for political legitimization?