Ukraine sanctions at Venice

Ukraine did not sanction generals or arms executives this time. On April 9, President Volodymyr Zelensky signed Decree No. 305/2026 targeting five people tied to Russia’s pavilion at the 2026 Venice Biennale, one of the world’s biggest art exhibitions. (president.gov.ua, mincult.gov.ua) The five names are pavilion commissioner Anastasia Karneeva, former Russian culture minister Mikhail Shvydkoy, violinist Valeria Oliinyk, singer Ilya Tatakov, and vocalist Artem Nikolaev. Ukrainian officials said they were involved in cultural projects that promote Russian state narratives during the war. (kyivpost.com, kyivindependent.com) Ukraine’s Culture Ministry said the case started with culture, not customs or visas. It described the group as participants in a Russian pavilion project at the 61st Venice Biennale and said the sanctions were proposed by Ukraine’s own ministry before the National Security and Defense Council approved them. (mincult.gov.ua, president.gov.ua) That matters because Russia’s pavilion had effectively vanished from the Venice Biennale after the full-scale invasion began in 2022. On February 28, 2022, the Biennale said the Russian curator and artists had resigned, which canceled that year’s participation. (labiennale.org) Now Russia is coming back. The Biennale’s official 2026 page says the 61st International Art Exhibition runs from May 9 to November 22, 2026, and reporting in March said Russia would reopen its national pavilion for the first time since the invasion. (labiennale.org, artnews.com) The person at the center of the fight is Karneeva. Multiple reports say she has served as commissioner of the Russian pavilion since 2021, and Ukrainian outlets have highlighted her family link to Rostec, the Russian state defense conglomerate. (english.nv.ua, kyivindependent.com) Shvydkoy is the other key name because he is not just an arts administrator. He is Russia’s special representative for international cultural cooperation and a former culture minister, which makes the pavilion look less like an isolated art project and more like a state-backed diplomatic one. (kyivpost.com, artnews.com) The Venice dispute was already spilling into European politics before Kyiv announced sanctions. In March, members of the European Parliament urged European Union leaders to block Russia’s return, and the European Commission warned that European funding for the Biennale could be at risk if Russia participated. (euronews.com, theartnewspaper.com) So this is not really a fight about paintings on walls in Venice. It is a fight over whether a country accused of war crimes can use a national pavilion, in a park of historic state pavilions, to look normal again in front of curators, collectors, diplomats, and tourists. (artnews.com, president.gov.ua) Ukraine’s move will not by itself remove Russia from the Biennale, which opens on May 9, 2026. But it raises the cost of treating the Russian pavilion as just another cultural event, because Kyiv has now formally labeled its organizers part of the same propaganda system it says supports the war. (labiennale.org, mincult.gov.ua)