EU imposes sanctions on Mikhail Piotrovsky, director of Russia's State Hermitage Museum

Mikhail Piotrovsky, the long-serving director of Russia’s State Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg, was added to the European Union’s 20th sanctions package adopted on 23 April for being a “close associate” of Vladimir Putin and for “actively support[ing] and justif[ying] Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine.” The EU listing also cites his support for Russian legislation enabling the incorporation of cultural items from Ukrainian museums into Russia’s State Museum Fund and for “unauthorised archaeological excavations” in occupied Crimea that damage protected Ukrainian heritage sites. On 28 April, Putin’s cultural envoy Mikhail Shvydkoy told Tass that the sanctions were “an even higher form of recognition” for Piotrovsky and a loss for Europe, while a Hermitage spokesperson told The Art Newspaper the museum had no comment. Piotrovsky has led the Hermitage since the early 1990s and has publicly framed culture as a geopolitical tool in interviews with Rossiiskaya Gazeta in 2022 and 2023.

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