This year, the headlines around the Venice Biennale have been non-stop.

The world’s most prestigious art festival has been wrapped in scandal because the Russians are back. So I decided to go there myself and find out why.

This came just after my trip to Hungary, where I investigated what Viktor Orbán is doing, and then from Hungary to Nikopol, right across from the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant. Now from Nikopol to Venice.

Slowly, Russians are being invited back into polite society through operas, Oscars, film festivals, and now art festivals. And when I searched for serious investigations into how this is happening and why the Russians are back at the Biennale, I could barely find any.

The president of the Biennale has been avoiding questions. The Russian delegation has been avoiding questions. So I wanted to ask them myself and try to find answers.