The storm of outrage could not shake him. Pietrangelo Buttafuoco, president of the Biennale, refused to bow. The Russian exhibition would stay. It was a matter of principle: the festival must remain a place of truce, he insisted.
The organizers had a powerful counterargument. Russia has owned the pavilion since 1914. Taking it away was not an option.
Moscow scoffed at the Western fury. Kremlin aide Mikhail Shvydkoy called the EU's funding withdrawal "disgraceful" and a "blatant interference in Italian domestic politics." Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova described the entire effort as a "relapse into anti-culture."
