European authorities withdraw planned funding for the Venice Biennale after Russia is included in this year’s event, according to multiple reports. The New York Times and Artforum say EU decision-makers had warned the organizers for months that the show would lose support if Russia participated. Artforum reports that the European Union definitively does not provide a previously expected multiyear grant of about €2 million. The accounts link the funding decision to Russia’s ongoing actions in Ukraine, describing Russia’s return to the Biennale amid the war. The reporting also characterizes the EU’s move as the result of a staged process in which officials communicated their conditions to the organizers well before the final decision. Both outlets frame the change as a formal cancellation of funding rather than a change in the Biennale’s program itself, emphasizing that the EU’s support is tied to participation. The reports do not indicate that the Biennale is cancelled, but that EU financial backing is removed due to the event’s inclusion of Russia.