From: Kyiv Independent — For Ukrainians and their supporters, the 82nd annual Venice Film Festival started off with a gut punch as they noticed the return of the Russian flag displayed alongside other countries’ flags at the main venue.
“I can’t believe my eyes: the fascist tricolor of the Russian Federation is flying proudly above the main entrance and the red carpet,” Venice-based Russian artist Katia Margolis wrote on her social media on Aug. 27, the day of the festival’s opening. “The very same flag under which Ukrainians are bombed, tortured, killed, and have their throats slit daily — literally and figuratively.”
The Venice Film Festival’s press office told the Kyiv Independent by phone that it could not comment on the issue and would forward the request to the festival’s organizers by email. As of publication, no response has been received.
When Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, many Western cultural institutions suspended cooperation with Russian artists as a show of solidarity with Ukraine.
Voice of Ukraine 