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Ukraine Urges Venice Film Festival to Remove Russian Flag Amid Ongoing Attacks
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![Photo of Dariia Mykhailenko]( "Photo of Dariia Mykhailenko")
Ukraine’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Ministry of Culture and Strategic Communications have urged the organizers of the Venice Film Festival to remove the Russian flag, which was raised above the festival’s main venue.
The call was made in a joint statement issued by the two ministries on August 28.
“Under this flag, Russian soldiers are committing war crimes right now. Even today, Russia carried out a brutal attack on Kyiv and several other Ukrainian cities, killing at least 21 people, including four children. At the same time, the organizers prefer to turn a blind eye,” the statement reads.
The ministries stressed that the Venice Film Festival must “remove Russia’s presence and its flag.”
“As long as Russia retains the freedom to decide how it continues killing civilians in Ukraine, granting it an international cultural platform is not freedom of art, but hypocrisy, indifference, and complicity in further terror,” the ministries emphasized.
Despite committing war crimes, Russia continues to appear on international cultural stages. Previously, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs condemned Woody Allen’s participation in the Moscow International Film Week, calling it “a disgrace and an insult to the sacrifice of Ukrainian actors and filmmakers killed or injured by Russian war criminals.”
The MFA stressed that taking part in a festival alongside Putin’s allies means ignoring Russia’s daily atrocities in Ukraine and turning culture into an instrument of propaganda, effectively lending credibility to Moscow’s “bloody festival.”
Earlier, it was reported that Ukrainian theaters are swiftly dropping productions of Woody Allen’s works after his appearance at the Moscow International Film Week. Multiple theaters announced suspensions, emphasizing that any association with the aggressor state’s cultural sphere is unacceptable.
