The Russian President’s Special Representative for International Cultural Cooperation, Mikhail Shvedkoy, played a key role in Russia’s return to the Venice Biennale, Deutsche Welle reported, citing two informed sources.
Russia has not participated in the Biennale since the beginning of the comprehensive invasion of Ukraine by Russian forces in 2022 and has not used its pavilion in Venice, but only rented it.
At the beginning of March 2026, Mikhail Shvedkoy announced that Russia plans, in the next biennial, which will be held from May 9 to November 22, to present a series of audio performances under the general title “A Tree Rooted in the Sky.”
According to a source at DW, the Special Representative of the President of the Russian Federation personally approved the list of participants in the exhibition from Moscow.
“Shvidkoy is well aware of who should be brought to Venice in 2026. The pavilion will not be rabid propaganda. Its main message is that true art is supposed to be outside politics and outside of time. Shvedkoy believes that the West is tired of politicization, war and cancel culture – so the time is now.” [для возвращения России на биеннале] With such a project,” said a DW source close to the Russian wing team in Venice.
On March 9, participants in the Platform of Russian Democratic Forces in the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) published an open letter to Italian Prime Minister Giorgio Meloni calling on him to ban representatives of the Russian Federation from participating in the Venice Biennale. “Including an aggressor state in the biennial program creates a dangerous precedent that plays into the hands of Russian state propaganda,” platform representatives say.
The Ukrainian authorities also issued a statement about the inadmissibility of Russia’s participation in the Venice Biennale. Ukrainian Minister of Culture Tatyana Berezhnaya male May 10, Regardless of whether Russia stays in the exhibition, Kiev considers the biennale an important platform to show its “serious political signal.” According to her, Ukraine is preparing a pavilion in Venice called “Security Guarantees.” “It tells the world that security guarantees must be serious, strong and effective,” Berezhnaya noted.