Venues in Moscow and St. Petersburg cancel a Ukrainian musician's performances after Russian TV paints him as a dangerous ‘Russophobe’

Two venues in Moscow and St. Petersburg have canceled performances planned later this month by the Ukrainian musician Zakhar May. The venues’ owners say they were dismayed to learn from the Russian news media about the musician’s “morally and ethically unacceptable” political views.

May is a relatively modern critic of Moscow’s armed intervention in Ukraine.

In recent weeks, the television network Rossiya 24, the newspaper Komsomolskaya Pravda, and the website DNI.ru have all published reports drawing attention to the “artist-Russophobe come to tour Russia.” May is still scheduled to perform on February 25 at the “Gogol” club in Moscow.

Following Russia’s annexation of Crimea and military intervention in eastern Ukraine, several musical performances have been canceled because of stars’ political views. In Russia, some concerts by the opposition-minded rock group “Mashina Vremeni” (Time Machine) were canceled. In Ukraine, the government has introduced an entire procedure to coordinate Russian musicians’ performances with national intelligence agencies.