A recent survey by the Rating polling group points to a telling trend: 39% of young people do not support a full ban on Russian culture in Ukraine. Much of that, however, appears to reflect a familiar pattern. Many teenagers continue to consume Russian content during Russia’s war against Ukraine not out of conviction, but out of instinctive defiance—if “adults” say no, they are more inclined to say yes.
This year’s Oscars drove home an uncomfortable point: much of the world still isn’t ready to draw a clear line on Russian culture, even after atrocities like those in Bucha. At the ceremony, David Borenstein’s Mr. Nobody Against Putin won Best Documentary Feature, telling the story of Russia through Pavel Talankin, a teacher and organiser from the Chelyabinsk region. Through his camera, we see how propaganda seeps deeper into school life, and how graduates quietly head off to fight in Russia’s war against Ukraine. But the film sticks to a familiar line—placing the blame squarely on Putin, while those around him, including these students, are portrayed as if they have little choice in any of it.
In other words, the viewer is nudged to feel sympathy for Russian children, not Ukrainian ones—overlooking how many people have suffered, and continue to suffer, at the hands of those same Russian soldiers, including Talankin’s former pupils. The line between victim and perpetrator blurs. As the ostensibly liberal journalist Leonid Parfenov put it: “Russia is also a victim of this war.” There is a stark contrast here. In a recent interview, actor Sean Penn recalled a trip to Russia in the early 2000s, when he met Putin and spoke casually about fatherhood. Now, he says, “this creature has abducted 30,000 children and taught them to hate their parents and their own country.” A clear illustration of who is spreading pro-Russian narratives.
Another moment at the Oscars slipped by with little notice. In the Best Live-Action Short Film category, the award went to Sam A. Davis’s The Singers, loosely based on a short story by Ivan Turgenev. Put together, it added up to a notable—arguably excessive—presence of Russian culture on the Oscars stage. And it points to a familiar blind spot: the ease with which Russian art is treated as something separate from Russia’s war against Ukraine. For years, Moscow has invested heavily in pushing exactly this idea—this is Putin’s war, not Pushkin’s. Many of the so-called “good Russians” echo it, laying responsibility solely at the president’s door while casting Russian culture as inherently peaceful, almost above politics. One of the few to challenge that line is Boris Akunin, who argues the issue is not just Putin, but the system itself—a hyper-centralised state built on violence and intimidation.
Such reluctance to see Russian tanks, missiles and Shahed drones alongside Dostoevsky, Tchaikovsky or Serov is not just a global blind spot—it exists in Ukraine too. Parents still let their children watch Masha and the Bear. Russian music continues to draw large audiences. And the argument that streams and views translate into millions for the Russian budget often falls flat—even after a night spent awake to the sound of drones overhead.
We have been told for far too long that art sits outside politics, and many people have come to accept that idea. The recent return—after a break since 2022—of the Russian pavilion at the Venice Biennale exposed a lack of consensus in cultural circles, with a range of justifications offered: “They’re not going to promote the war or Putin there, it’s just art; and if anything, you can always just avoid that pavilion.” But each time the aggressor is placed on the same footing as others, it normalises Russia’s position in the world, effectively accepting its status as an equal among equals, despite the war it has unleashed in the heart of Europe. In other words, instead of clear condemnation, there is hesitant silence—and with it, a quiet form of encouragement for the continuation of its strategy of conquest.
“Pushkinfall,” now in their fourth year, still don’t enjoy universal support in Ukraine—much like the wider push to rename streets. The effort to clear away “Russian markers,” many of which are hardly artistic to begin with (as with most Pushkin monuments in towns and villages across the country), is often dismissed as window-dressing, a distraction from more pressing social and political issues. Yet, at its core, that argument misses something more fundamental: the political and ideological weight of culture itself. It also overlooks the risks that come when an aggressor turns art into cover, using it as a smokescreen to obscure intent and advance a long-standing imperial logic of “divide and rule.”
The presence of Russian culture in Ukraine—distinct from the Russian-speaking culture of Ukraine—remains a sensitive issue amid the war. As a result, the process often described as decommunisation, or more accurately decolonisation, does not enjoy unanimous support, especially as it is sometimes carried out in a chaotic way and without a clear rationale.
It is clear that Ukraine will only be able to fully address Russia’s cultural expansion on its territory once its military expansion has ended. Even so, it is already evident that the task will not be straightforward. A segment of the population is growing weary of repeated bans and is, step by step, beginning to treat the aggressor’s culture as something separate from politics.
This brings us back to the familiar formula: “Putin’s war, not Pushkin’s”—a framing promoted in the West, sometimes consciously, often unconsciously, but one that ultimately risks reinforcing Russia’s narrative. The consequences of that extend far beyond Ukraine.
For now, the standing of Russian culture internationally has not deteriorated compared to 2022; in some respects, it has even improved. And that, by any measure, is a worrying trend.
