Emphasizing cultural and national distinctiveness provides one avenue to impede the
naturalization of neoimperial authoritarian aggression. Accordingly, calling for increased
representation of Ukrainian art and culture as well as for more precision in distinguishing
things Ukrainian from things Russian in global art worlds is and has been one pivotal
strategy for delegitimating Russia’s ongoing war against Ukraine. Such a strategy of representation
is meant to counter Russian neoimperial tropes that legitimate the ongoing
war through popularizing the idea that only Russian culture in an imperial key guaranteed
peace in the area of what was once called the eastern bloc. Fostering a greater representation
of Ukrainian art aims at sensitizing international audiences to the reproduction of
Russian imperial nationalism through the conflation of things Russian and Ukrainian as
well as a taken-for-granted enjoyment of Russian art.