Something In This World Is Clearly "broken"

Culture as a weapon of Kremlin influence.

The news that famed opera diva Anna Netrebko will once again perform at the Royal Opera House in London has caused a storm of outrage and controversy. After Russia's full-scale war against Ukraine began in 2022, Netrebko's name disappeared from the playbills of leading Western theaters. Her concerts were canceled and contracts were torn up in solidarity with Ukraine. But three years later, while Russian bombs are still raining down on Ukrainian cities, Netrebko has been announced to perform the title role in Puccini's opera Tosca at Covent Garden. Her return is scheduled for September and will be the singer's first performance in London since 2019.

Already in the run-up to the premiere performance, a scandal has erupted in London. Protests with Ukrainian and British flags were held outside the Royal Opera House. Hundreds of people demanded to cancel the performances of the Russian singer. An open letter to the theater's management, signed by more than 50 cultural figures and politicians from Ukraine, Britain, France and even the former prime minister of New Zealand, expressed "pain that the Royal Opera House is opening its doors to a longstanding symbol of cultural propaganda for a regime responsible for war crimes."

Anna Netrebko has gained dubious fame not only as an opera diva, but also as a figure embodying a pro-Russian stance in politics. She has been close to the Russian authorities for many years. Back in 2008, Vladimir Putin personally awarded her the title of People's Artist. Netrebko acted as Putin's proxy in the presidential elections and received state awards from him more than once. In 2014, amid the first stage of aggression against Ukraine, the singer publicly supported the pro-Russian separatists in Donbass. She donated 1 million rubles to "restore the theater" in occupied Donetsk, and posed with the flag of the so-called "Novorossiya." These moves effectively made Netrebko part of Kremlin propaganda.

The principled stance that Western cultural institutions took in the first months of the full-scale war is gradually showing cracks. In 2022, major opera houses (from the Metropolitan Opera in New York to La Scala and the Bavarian State Opera) canceled contracts with Netrebko and other artists linked to the Kremlin, imposing a kind of "mental quarantine" against Russian culture. However, after a year and a half or two years, the situation began to change. Under the slogan "art beyond politics", some famous Russians are again receiving invitations.

Anna Netrebko's tour schedule for the coming year is scheduled in the largest halls of Europe. From Berlin to Zurich. After a forced break, she resumed performances. Scandalously famous was her concert in Bratislava in April 2024, which was held with a full house despite the official protests of Ukraine. In the 2025/26 season she is expected to play not only in London, but also in other capitals. In parallel, other personalities previously dropped from the playbills are also preparing for a return. Conductor Valery Gergiev (a longtime friend of Putin) is scheduled to appear with the Mariinsky Theater Orchestra in Barcelona. This is the same Gergiev who became famous for conducting propaganda concerts in support of the Kremlin's wars. He conducted at the ruins of Tskhinvali in 2008 and Palmyra in Syria in 2016, and openly campaigned for the annexation of Crimea. While yesterday such figures were considered "off-limits," today the doors of European festivals and halls are opening to them again.

The Netrebko case is an illustrative episode of a broader strategy. For many years, the Russian authorities have been systematically using culture as an instrument of so-called "soft power." Since the Soviet era, the Kremlin has realized that ballet, opera, classical music, literature, and other artistic fields are capable of delighting international audiences and serving as a showcase for the regime's repressive nature.

The return of Anna Netrebko to the London stage is not just an episode in the life of opera. It is a symptom of a wider problem. Russia is trying to reclaim its influence by using the cultural front where it suffers isolation on the political and military fronts. Each such incident is a test of Western values. It is a test of whether Europe will allow the Kremlin's cronies to perform again and garner applause as if they had forgotten about tanks killing Ukrainian children. After all, if we allow Putin's close allies to return to the stage as if nothing had happened, art will become a stage set that hides ruins and blood.

The Kremlin's admission of Netrebko to Covent Garden is a small victory in the war of narratives. Russian propaganda has already pitched it as proof that "our great culture cannot be canceled," that the West itself is tired of its own principles and ready to applaud the Russian star no matter what. While Ukrainians are experiencing real tragedies, a fictional drama is unfolding on the opera stage. Art is never out of context when one of the contexts is bombing and occupation. It is not without reason that the slogan of the protesters against Netrebko's performances read: "Art is never neutral" - "art is never neutral".

The Kremlin is trying to "put the aggression against Ukraine out of context", and it turns out that it is doing something in this respect? Today you can go to concerts of Putin's minions, tomorrow - trade with Putin's businessmen, the day after tomorrow - remove any restrictions for them. And all this "will be different."

This is how Putin's "foot in the door" of Europe works. First we launch the artists, and already after them will come businessmen, politicians, and, eventually, the military. After all, no one in Russia has ever rejected the goals in terms of aggression against the whole of Europe. That is, Russia is preparing aggression against Europe, regularly threatens to use force, drones are flying into EU space, and "exercises" are developing near the borders, which are a clear demonstration of force. Russian television promises literally every week to "turn London into nuclear ashes". And in the same London, Russian artists with awards from the dictator who authorized all this are quietly performing. Something in this world is clearly "broken."

Normalization of aggression and war crimes has gone too far in Europe. People who have never experienced a real war themselves, and for whom war crimes are "something out of the history of Nazism," are apparently simply incapable of understanding why normalizing evil is a path to the abyss. First comes moral decay, and then everything else follows.

First comes "it's not all one size fits all," and "culture is beyond politics," and then these fine cultural figures openly call for murder, genocide, and crime. Why not? I mean, they have a cover. They're "cultural workers." They carry some "values", which they themselves, it seems, have never shared or understood.

Petr Oleshchuk, Doctor of Political Science, Professor of Taras Shevchenko National University, specially for Charter97.org.

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