UWC President, 36 Ukrainian organizations call for cancellation of pro-Putin conductor’s performance

Ukrainian World Congress (UWC) President Paul Grod along with 36 Ukrainian organizations in Italy have signed an open letter urging Italian authorities to cancel the scheduled performance of Valery Gergiev — a Russian conductor and outspoken backer of Vladimir Putin’s regime — at a musical festival in Italy.

The letter was signed on July 12 during the Forum of Ukrainians in Italy. 

The Ukrainian community is urging Italian government agencies to stop Kremlin propaganda from taking root in the country’s cultural sphere. 

“Don’t become accomplices to Russian aggression. Don’t give a platform to justify the genocide of Ukrainians,” said Oles Horodetskyy, leader of the Christian Association of Ukrainians in Italy.

The Munich Philharmonic Orchestra severed ties with him in 2022. That same year, Ukraine imposed sanctions against him, followed by Canada in 2025.

Allowing a prominent member of an aggressive regime to perform — especially on such a prestigious stage as the Royal Palace of Caserta — is described in the letter as a “cynical move, given the hundreds of thousands of innocent victims,” he said. 

The statement added that “giving this individual a platform is an insult to the victims of Ukraine and the entire Ukrainian nation, which is under daily attack by those whom Valery Gergiev openly supports.” 

Gergiev has not performed on Western stages in over three years, having been banned across Europe and North America for refusing to condemn Russia’s war against Ukraine. 

Since then, the Kremlin-aligned conductor has performed in Russia, China, and Iran.

However, he is now scheduled to appear on July 27 at the Un’Estate da Re festival in Caserta, north of Naples, conducting the Giuseppe Verdi Philharmonic Orchestra of Salerno.

“Gergiev is a personal friend of the Russian dictator and has supported Putin from the very beginning of his rise to power,” said the Centre for Strategic Communication and Information Security.

The conductor has publicly backed multiple Russian military campaigns — the invasion of Georgia in 2008, the annexation of Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula in 2014, the intervention in Syria in 2016, and the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022.

“Gergiev’s participation in Un’Estate da Re is unacceptable. It would send a message to the Kremlin that Russia can break out of international isolation even as its brutal war against Ukraine continues. That would only encourage Moscow to escalate aggression — not just against Ukraine, but against other countries as well,” the Centre said.

Ukraine is also calling on the European Union to block efforts by this prominent Putin propagandist to re-enter Europe’s cultural stage through the festival.