The European Broadcasting Union cleared Israel to take part in next year’s Eurovision Song Contest, brushing aside demands for its exclusion and sparking an unprecedented backlash. “A large majority of Members agreed that there was no need for a further vote on participation and that the Eurovision Song Contest 2026 should proceed as planned, with the additional safeguards in place,” the EBU said in a statement Thursday. Following the decision, broadcasters in Spain, Ireland, the Netherlands and Slovenia said they disagreed with the EBU and announced they would not participate in the 70th-anniversary Eurovision in Vienna because Israel was allowed to take part. The boycotting countries said their decision was based on Israel’s war in Gaza and the resulting humanitarian crisis, as they launched a historic boycott that plunges Eurovision into its deepest-ever crisis. “Culture unites, but not at any price,” Taco Zimmerman, general director of Dutch broadcaster AVROTROS, said Thursday. “Universal values such as humanity and press freedom have been seriously compromised, and for us, these values are non-negotiable.” On the other side of the debate, Germany had warned it could pull out of the contest if Israel was not allowed to take part. Before the voting took place, Golan Yochpaz, a senior Israeli TV executive, said the meeting was “the attempt to remove KAN [Israeli national broadcasters] from the contest,” which “can only be understood as a cultural boycott.” Ireland’s public broadcaster RTÉ said it “feels that Ireland’s participation remains unconscionable given the appalling loss of lives in Gaza and the humanitarian crisis there, which continues to put the lives of so many civilians at risk.” Spanish radio and television broadcaster RTVE said it had lost trust in Eurovision. RTVE President José Pablo López said that “what happened at the EBU Assembly confirms that Eurovision is not a song contest but a festival dominated by geopolitical interests and fractured.” The EBU in Geneva also agreed on measures to “curb disproportionate third-party influence, including government-backed campaigns,” and limited the number of public votes to 10 “per payment method.” RTVE called the change “insufficient.” Controversy earlier this year prompted the changes, when several European broadcasters alleged that the Israeli government had interfered in the voting — after Israel received the largest number of public votes during the final. The EBU has been in talks with its members about Israel’s participation since the issue was raised at a June meeting of national broadcasters in London. Eurovision is run by the EBU, an alliance of public service media with 113 members in 56 countries. The contest has long proclaimed that it is “non-political,” but in 2022, the EBU banned Russia from the competition following the Kremlin’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Palestinian militant group Hamas attacked Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, killing about 1,200 people in Israel, a large majority of whom were civilians, and taking 251 hostages. The attack prompted a major Israeli military offensive in Gaza, which has killed tens of thousands of Palestinians, many of them civilians, displaced 90 percent of Gaza’s population and destroyed wide areas. The ceasefire brokered by U.S. President Donald Trump in October 2025 led to the release of the remaining 20 Israeli hostages. Shawn Pogatchnik contributed to this report.

Czechia’s populist figurehead Andrej Babiš on Wednesday unveiled a governing coalition of mavericks, from a motormouth racing driver to the former frontman of a funk-rock group. Now the real horse trading begins. The country’s president, Petr Pavel, ultimately appoints the prime minister and the Cabinet — and he is allowed to say no to the proposals from Babiš, who won the Czech election in October. Pavel — who will begin individual consultations Friday with proposed ministers — previously noted that strong pro-NATO and pro-EU stances, along with safeguarding the country’s democratic institutions, will be key factors in his decision-making. Babiš, despite legal troubles of his own, is still on track to be the next Czech PM after sealing his coalition deal with the far-right Freedom and Direct Democracy and right-wing Motorists for Themselves parties. After the big coalition reveal, POLITICO highlights some of the most controversial ministers set to make up Prague’s populist government. FILIP TUREK — THE RACING DRIVER PROBED BY POLICE Filip Turek, the face of the Motorists party who has courted controversy ever since being elected as a member of the European Parliament last year, was selected to be Czechia’s new environment minister. He’s faced allegations of sexual assault from an ex-girlfriend, which he calls “absurd,” and making racist, sexist, and homophobic comments on Facebook, which he denies. Police are investigating both matters. A former racing driver, he has also made a name for himself as a keen collector of expensive cars and the founder and chairman of Czechia’s Jaguar Club. Turek has voted against green legislation in the European Parliament as an MEP for the right-wing Patriots for Europe group, from tighter rules on genetically modified crops to restrictions on combustion-engine cars. Turek also backed efforts to water down the EU’s incoming deforestation regulation (EUDR), arguing that he wants to ensure “that EU policies do not undermine industrial competitiveness through overly restrictive environmental measures.” Babiš told reporters Wednesday at Prague Castle that Pavel “still has a problem with Mr. Turek,” who is considered to be the most polarizing ministerial nominee. PETR MACINKA — THE CLIMATE CHANGE SKEPTIC Petr Macinka, leader of the Motorists party, has been selected as foreign minister. He made a bold symbolic entrance when meeting the president on Oct. 6 in a massive Ram 1500 pickup, signaling his opposition to the EU’s Green Deal and the 2035 combustion engine ban. Last year, Macinka said that if his party makes it into the government “green blood will run,” and recently stated that “the idea that humans are the sole cause of climate change is funny.” He wants to leave the Paris climate agreement and roll back protection for the Soutok protected landscape area, part of the so-called Moravian Amazon. Macinka is a supporter of the transatlantic military alliance, admitting on the campaign trail that his only fear is “the stirring up of sentiments about leaving NATO, because NATO isn’t some organization that tries to educate us, it’s a defense pact that ensures collective security.” In Ukraine, Macinka has tried to project a clear pro-Western, anti-Russian line — but Turek’s position on Ukraine continues to weaken the party’s credibility, as he recently told POLITICO that he wants to slash military aid to Kyiv and pursue a noninterventionist approach to avoid any escalation with Moscow. OTO KLEMPÍŘ — THE ROCK STAR TURNED POLITICIAN Another incoming minister, Oto Klempíř, has drawn criticism from 500 Czech artists, who signed an open letter opposing any Motorists party candidate leading the culture ministry, fearing it could threaten artistic freedom and echo developments in neighboring Slovakia. Filip Turek has voted against green legislation in the European Parliament as an MEP for the right-wing Patriots for Europe group, from tighter rules on genetically modified crops to restrictions on combustion-engine cars. | Martin Divisek/EPA Bratislava’s culture ministry, under the populist government of Prime Minister Robert Fico, slashed funding for independent cultural institutions and transformed the country’s national broadcaster, RTVS, into a new entity under political control. “The party Motorists for Themselves … offers a dismantling of what currently works within the cultural sector. It rejects a series of measures aimed at improving working conditions in culture and explicitly expresses distrust toward the grant system and independent expert committees — raising concerns about potential political control over artistic production,” the letter read. Klempíř, an artist himself and former frontman of the well-known Czech funk-rock band J.A.R., was dismissed from the band in August after announcing his candidacy for the Motorists. The potential minister urged his critics to wait and see how he performed in the culture role, in a social media post in mid-October. MARTIN ŠEBESTYÁN — THE SMALL FARMERS’ NIGHTMARE Martin Šebestyán, an independent expert nominated by SPD, who is on deck to be Czechia’s next agriculture minister, has a history with Babiš’ company Agrofert, having overseen Common Agricultural Policy subsidy distributions as head of the State Agricultural Intervention Fund. Last year, Petr Macinka (right) said that if his party makes it into the government “green blood will run,” and recently stated that “the idea that humans are the sole cause of climate change is funny.” | Martin Divisek/EPA He is currently the head of the the Initiative of Agricultural and Food Enterprises, which brings together the largest agricultural concerns in the country (including Agrofert). Smaller farmers are warning against Šebestyán’s nomination. “It is difficult to imagine a greater denial of the legitimate interests of farmers than the active nomination of Martin Šebestyán to the role of representative of the ministry of agriculture,” said Jaroslav Šebek, the chairman of the Association of Private Farming, in a statement to POLITICO. The biggest agriculture unions support him getting the post, however. In 2021, the European Commission ruled that Babiš, prime minister at the time, had a conflict of interest as he continued to control Agrofert and its subsidies despite placing his assets in trusts. Although Czechia wasn’t required to repay the EU funds, the state absorbed the loss, and in August this year the agriculture ministry ordered Agrofert to return €200 million in subsidies. Critics fear the recovery effort could stall with Šebestyán in the agriculture post. Šebestyán declined to comment to multiple Czech outlets that have written about him since the election. ANDREJ BABIŠ — THE MAN HIMSELF Babiš remains mired in controversy, particularly over an ongoing €2 million EU subsidy fraud case. He is suspected by Czech authorities of fiddling ownership documents so that his agriculture empire Agrofert qualifies to receive subsidies intended for medium-sized businesses. After his earlier acquittal was overturned by Prague’s High Court in June, he now awaits a new verdict from the district court. Regardless of what the court decides, Babiš’ ownership of Agrofert remains a potential conflict of interest that could prevent the president appointing him as prime minister unless he can prove there’s no conflict. He is also being investigated in France over allegations he used shell companies to buy property and a luxury château on the French Riviera in 2009, a revelation that came to light as part of the Pandora Papers exposé. Babiš denies all the allegations.

The EU’s top court ruled Tuesday that when a same-sex couple is legally married in one member country, any other member country where they move or reside must recognize that marriage. The case concerned two Polish citizens who were resident in Germany and married in Berlin in 2018. When they sought recognition of their marriage in Poland, authorities refused, citing national law, which does not recognize same-sex marriages. The couple took the case to the Polish Supreme Administrative Court, which referred it to the Court of Justice of the European Union. The Luxembourg-based court said this was contrary to EU law because it “infringes” on the freedom of movement “and the right to respect for private and family life.” In a press release summarizing the judgment, the court added: “Member States are therefore required to recognize, for the purpose of the exercise of the rights conferred by EU law, the marital status lawfully acquired in another Member State.” Member countries “enjoy a margin of discretion to choose the procedures for recognizing such a marriage,” the court added. The court stressed, however, that its ruling does not oblige countries to introduce same-sex marriage under their domestic laws.

Nicolas Sarkozy spent 20 days in prison, and soon you can read about every single one of them. Yes, “Nicolas Sarkozy, The Journal of a Prisoner” is coming to a bookstore (or prison library) near you on Dec. 10. According to a press release from publisher Fayard, the former French president’s book is 216 pages long — that’s just under 11 pages per day of incarceration. A quote from the actual book was released as a teaser. It begins: “In prison, there is nothing to see, and nothing to do,” which does rather beg the question — what are you going to write 216 pages about? He adds that “silence … does not exist at La Santé [prison in Paris]” but that noise “is alas constant.” Did prison break Sarkozy? Of course not, as he writes, “like [in] the desert, inner life strengthens in prison.” Sarkozy, 70, was imprisoned after being found guilty of allowing “close collaborator” and “unofficial intermediaries” to try to obtain funding from Moammar Gadhafi’s regime in Libya for his 2007 presidential run. That made him the first former French head of state to end up behind bars since Nazi collaborator Philippe Pétain. He was allowed to walk out of prison on Nov. 10 after an appeals court approved his request for release. During his incarceration, Sarkozy was separated from the general prison population, and two bodyguards occupied a neighboring cell to ensure his safety. News of the book comes less than a month after POLITICO’s Declassified humor column speculated as to what a Sarkozy prison memoir would look like.

It’s the political battle of the year: Germany vs. Brazil! German Chancellor Friedrich Merz said he and his nation’s press were oh-so happy to return home from U.N. climate talks in Belém, Brazil, in remarks that triggered a political firestorm. “We live in one of the most beautiful countries in the world. Last week I asked some journalists who were with me in Brazil: Which of you would like to stay here? No one raised their hand,” Merz said upon returning from Brazil. “They were all happy that, above all, we returned from this place to Germany.” Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva didn’t take that slight lying down. “He should have gone dancing in Pará,” Lula said about the state where Belém is situated. “He should have tasted Pará’s cuisine. Because he would have realized that Berlin doesn’t offer him 10 percent of the quality that the state of Pará offers.” But which is the better country? POLITICO took (an entirely unscientific) look at five key areas to see whether it’s Berlin or Rio de Janeiro, Beckenbauer or Pelé, and currywurst or feijoada that ultimately comes out on top. FOOD AND DRINK Vegetarians are the biggest losers here. Germany’s meat-driven cuisine is known for Sauerbraten, a heavily marinated dish usually made with beef and served with Knödel (potato dumplings, since you asked). They’ve also got Currywurst (sliced sausage covered in ketchup and curry powder) and Schnitzel (a thin, breaded slice of fried meat), along with countless ways to prepare potatoes, and also breads. Don’t forget the breads. Would you rather go for a Schnitzel with beer or a feijoada with fresh orange juice? | Ferdinand Knapp/POLITICO Brazil’s cuisine is, somehow, even more meat-heavy. Brazilians love a good churrasco (barbecue) and their daily feijoada (a stew of black beans with pork and beef, served with white rice). The South American country also offers a dazzling array of fresh juices, made from tropical fruits most tourists have never heard of — and, of course, delicious Caipirinhas if you’re looking for something with a bit more punch. Germany can match that, however, with its world-renowned beer culture (more on that later). On the dessert front, German cakes are great, but Brazil’s açai bowls — a dish made of frozen and mashed fruit of the açai palm — have made it to European stores and hipster brunch cafés. It’s a narrow win for Brazil, but they do lose points for putting banana and chocolate on pizza. Brazil: 8 out of 10 Germany: 6 out of 10 SPORTS Brazil and Germany are two of international football’s heaviest hitters, and the Seleçao edges Die Mannschaft in the number of FIFA Men’s World Cups won, by 5 to 4. Brazil also beat Germany 2-0 in the 2002 World Cup final in Japan. But (and it’s a big but) in the 2014 World Cup semifinal, Germany crushed Brazil 7-1 at home in Belo Horizonte. The game was a major embarrassment for Brazil, and the national football team has arguably never recovered. After decades of iconic Brazilian players, from Pelé to Jairzinho to Sócrates to Zico to Romário to Ronaldo to Ronaldinho, the talent pipeline has run somewhat dry. Germany has produced some iconic players of its own — see Gerd Müller, Franz Beckenbauer, Lothar Matthäus and Manuel Neuer — but Brazil edges it here. Germany has also won two Women’s World Cups, to Brazil’s zero. While the countries don’t directly face off too often in other sports, two of the most legendary drivers in Formula One history — Ayrton Senna and Michael Schumacher — hail from Brazil and Germany, respectively. World famous Maracanã Stadium in March 2014, just months before the World Cup in Brazil. | Ferdinand Knapp/POLITICO Senna won three world championships before his untimely death in a crash in 1994, while Schumacher won seven titles before retiring in 2012. He suffered a serious brain injury in a skiing accident in 2013 and has been in private treatment ever since. On the tennis court, German stars Steffi Graf and Boris Becker won a combined 28 individual grand slam titles, which dwarfs the three won by Brazil’s best-ever player, Gustavo Kuerten. Brazil: 8.5 out of 10 Germany: 9 out of 10 CULTURE In the battle of the carnivals, Rio de Janeiro has the clear advantage over Cologne, not just in terms of the number of participants and visitors, but also in that you’re unlikely to have to wear your winter coat under your colorful costume in Rio. Brazil’s northeastern city of Salvador also boasts of having the world’s largest street carnival. However, carnival is important in both countries and is even dubbed “the fifth season” in Germany. Germany scores strongly because of Oktoberfest, which is of course mostly held in September (who said German efficiency was a myth?) and is the biggest celebration of beer, sausages (and flatulence) on the planet. It also gives us the annual sight of the chancellor raising aloft a massive festbier. In the battle of the carnivals, Rio de Janeiro has the clear advantage. | Ferdinand Knapp/POLITICO Not to be outdone, Brazil has its own Oktoberfest in Blumenau, a city in Santa Catarina state. Local authorities say it’s the second-biggest Oktoberfest in the world. Don’t forget Germany’s famous Christmas markets, although the impact has been dulled by the fact that you can now find them across Europe. Brazil: 9 out of 10 Germany: 7 out of 10 ECONOMY The shine has faded off what was once Europe’s superstar economy. Germany’s famed industry has been battered by the twin shocks of soaring energy prices in the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and China’s turn toward high-tech manufacturing. The Asian country, Germany’s largest trading partner, is increasingly becoming a competitor and was the world’s largest exporter of cars in 2023. As a result, the German economy has barely grown since 2020, making it the worst-performing major economy in the EU. Brazil shines by comparison, having registered brisk growth of around 3 percent the last two years, and this year gross domestic product is expected to expand by around 2.2 percent. The South American country is an agricultural powerhouse and the world’s largest exporter of soybeans. It also holds the distinction of being one of the few developing countries to grow a domestic aerospace industry, with the world’s third-largest civilian airplane maker, Embraer. Brazil: 6 out of 10 Germany: 2 out of 10 NATURE Germany has diverse landscapes, from the pine woods of the flat north to the famous picture-postcard Black Forest in the hilly south. Brave tourists can take a swim in the (always refreshing!) North and Baltic Seas or hike and ski in the beautiful Alps. But none of this can match the biodiversity of Brazil’s massive Amazon rainforest (often called the “lungs of the world”) and the coast’s long, panoramic sandy beaches. And don’t forget Iguazu, the largest waterfall system in the world. The vibrating city of Rio de Janeiro alone combines natural contrasts you won’t find in Germany: The world-famous Copacabana and Ipanema beaches and the lush rainforest of Tijuca National Park are right next to each other, with Christ the Redeemer rising from the hills as Brazil’s iconic landmark. Brazil: 10 out of 10 Germany: 7 out of 10 Starnberg Lake in Bavaria, Germany | Ferdinand Knapp/POLITICO FINAL SCORE Brazil: 41.5 out of 50 Germany: 31 out of 50 It’s official (sort of), Brazil is better than Germany! Perhaps Merz should take Lula’s advice and go back so he can appreciate more of what Brazil has to offer.

Lithuania banned Russian rapper Morgenshtern from entry for 10 years, accusing him of being a threat to national security, the government told local media on Thursday. The 27-year-old Alisher Valeev, better known by his stage name, was scheduled to perform in Vilnius on Nov. 29. The mayor of Vilnius, Valdas Benkunskas, asked the foreign ministry in October to add the artist to the country’s list of “undesirable persons.” Since Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Morgenshtern has performed in Vilnius twice, but Benkunskas accused him of supporting Vladimir Putin and not defining Crimea as Ukrainian. “I cannot sit idly by and watch as an artist who cannot answer whose Crimea is, publicly expresses his respect for Putin, and who … was added to the Ukrainian Ministry of Culture’s list of persons posing a threat to national security, comes to Vilnius,” the mayor said. Morgenshtern is known for controversial comments he has made in interviews throughout his career, that have also landed him in hot water with Russian authorities. In 2020, Morgenshtern said Putin is a “tough guy,” but refused to assess his political record, merely stating that he didn’t trust the Russian president or any other politician. In a 2021 interview with a Ukrainian journalist, Morgenshtern said he hadn’t known about the war in Donbas and had no interest in learning about it. “Crimea belongs to Crimeans,” the rapper said.  In another interview the same year, he criticized Moscow for spending millions of rubles annually on the May 9 Victory Day celebrations. After Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Morgenshtern called for peace in March 2022 in a music video.  Russian authorities have investigated him for drug trafficking, canceled his concerts and ultimately labeled him a “foreign agent.” He has since gone into exile. Morgenshtern is on a European tour right now and is scheduled to perform Friday in Paris. Giedrė Peseckyte contributed to this report.

THE BOOM THAT BROKE MALTA A sprawling fraud trial involving former premier Joseph Muscat lays bare the costs of 12 years of gangbuster growth. By BEN MUNSTER in Paceville, Malta Illustrations by Naama Benziman for POLITICO If you’re looking for a prime example of the profound ugliness and moral decay inflicted on this tiny island nation by a decade of misrule, you could do worse than a visit to the coastal party district of Paceville. Sickly, meaty smells permeate the air, house music booms behind high walls, and throngs of tourists frequent strip clubs in ungainly new builds that, like malign vines, are beginning to encroach on the district’s neighboring suburbs. “It’s grab, grab, grab,” griped local Mayor Noel Muscat, who was up in arms last year about plans for a gargantuan luxury hotel near his own quiet constituency of Swieqi. The structure, he said, was both widely unpopular and conceptually incoherent: a tower so large it would cast a shadow over the very sliver of beach developers hope rich clients will pay a hefty sum to access. Advertisement But despite all that, most residents are likely to support it, he said — being merely happy that the value of their own adjacent properties will go up. Since the once-dominant ex-premier Joseph Muscat (no relation to Noel) took power in 2013, this tiny Mediterranean island nation has witnessed an astonishing economic boom, fueled by a no-holds-barred drive to court the world’s wealthy. But the giddy growth spurt has led to serious deformities — most visibly in the country’s increasingly stunted living environment. In towns like Paceville and countless others, weary locals complain that powerful construction firms have been allowed to run roughshod over politicians and planning laws, erecting foreboding skylines over the tiny island’s once-pristine coast, while critical infrastructure rots. Politics has degraded in tandem, producing endless corruption scandals and a persistent feeling of impunity as major trials continued to produce zero high-level convictions. A Eurobarometer survey last year in Malta reported that some 95 percent of respondents believed corruption to be “widespread.” That all appeared to change in May 2024, when Joseph Muscat and 33 others were charged in connection with a sprawling, international fraud that seemed to epitomize this disregard for Malta’s towns and cities. Top officials, including the former premier, were accused of stealing thousands of euros in taxpayer money intended for the overhaul of three crumbling state-run hospitals. They deny the charges. To activists, the scale of the so-called Vitals case made it the first real shot to hold accountable a government they say has spent the past 10 years plundering the public purse with impunity. But as proceedings wear on inconclusively after a full year and a half, there is growing anxiety about the prospects for the trial, which has run aground amid an array of baffling procedural blunders and a ferocious political counteroffensive. An opaque and vulnerable justice system has left prosecutors floundering with a hole-ridden charge sheet, and the government, for all its critics, continues to trounce the weak opposition — enjoying ironclad support from swaths of the population that have grown rich off its policies. As change looks increasingly improbable, it’s raised an uncomfortable question: When corruption becomes so lucrative that it entrenches itself at the heart of politics, can it ever be rooted out? ORIGINAL SIN  Squeezed between Sicily and North Africa, Malta’s half-a-million citizens occupy a mass of urban sprawl barely a fifth the size of London — less a country than a city-state marooned in the Mediterranean, indelibly shaped by millennia of foreign rule.  From 40,000 feet above sea level, that history rolls into view as a near-unbroken series of parchment-yellow settlements stretching from coast to coast across three tiny islands, punctuated by patches of dry scrub and deep red earth from which little grows. Upon closer inspection, you’ll see the eclectic architectural legacy of a panoply of imperial invaders — the Phoenicians, Romans, Normans, Arabs, Spanish Habsburgs, Napoleon, and the British Empire — and their baroque palaces, Umayyad forts, and colonial-era barracks. Since the departure of the British in 1964, the island’s inhabitants have been in search of a homegrown national identity beyond textiles and piracy. The 20th century saw a bitter conflict over language, political violence and a long flirtation with Libya-style nonalignment. The country finally hitched its fortunes to Europe in 2004 with its entry into the EU — but its true transformation began in 2013 with the election of Joseph Muscat on a sweeping platform of renewal after years of economic hardship. Advertisement Muscat was the dynamic young leader of the Labour Party, which along with the Nationalist Party is one of two century-old factions that command fanatical bases of support in Malta. Muscat’s strategy was to exploit the tiny nation’s newfound access to the world’s largest trading bloc, catering to an increasingly footloose global elite. Under his watch, the government radically changed its business model, selling passports to wealthy foreigners and making it trivially easy to set up financial services, crypto and internet gaming firms that could then operate across the EU.  Malta quickly became a playground for international investors. Between 2013 and 2024, the stock of foreign direct investment — much of it in shell companies, trusts and holding companies — surged from €9.6 billion to a staggering €460 billion, 68 times faster than Malta’s equally breakneck domestic growth. At the same time, gross domestic product per capita leaped by almost 70 percent, over four times the European average, creating a class of newly prosperous citizens who were hard-pressed to quibble with the new order.  But prosperity also brought an increasing coziness between business and politics. The perception of corruption crept up steadily. Desmond Zammit Marmarà, a former Labour lawmaker-turned-critic, said he was routinely solicited for bribes (he assured POLITICO he turned them down), and observed a tendency in the public sector to fraudulently inflate budgets. Another former Labour lawmaker lamented that centuries of colonial domination had taught his countrymen that it was a virtue to rob the state.  Unease over this new dynamic figured most prominently in the construction sector. Upon taking office, Labour supercharged an anything-goes approach to development kicked off by the previous government. The dream was to transform Malta into a cosmopolis for the super rich — a Mediterranean Dubai of luxury hotels and towering office blocks. Malta’s urban landscape soon witnessed an extraordinary transformation. Cranes filled the heavens, sawdust choked the thoroughfares, and neat rows of 19th-century townhouses gave way to graceless slabs of glass and steel. The endless construction brought in waves of migrant workers, tourists and businessmen, all flocking to the new country being built piecemeal over the old one, dramatically swelling the population in summertime and causing an enduring housing crisis.  Critics said the whole system was broken and corrupt. A planning process spread across a tangle of local bodies, public institutions and ministerial portfolios was easily exploited by developers looking to ram through at times legally dicey projects, often with the tacit support of government and municipal officials. According to Emanuel Delia, the co-founder of the rule-of-law nongovernmental organization Repubblika, the policy changes featured a mix of genuine deregulation — for instance around building limits for real estate — and “selective enforcement” of existing rules that favored firms with close ties to government. Just this summer, Malta’s National Audit Office triggered a fresh round of public outrage when it alleged that Muscat’s powerful chief of staff, Keith Schembri, had helped Malta’s land authority conceal an evaluation report on behalf of a large developer in 2019, costing the taxpayer nearly €16 million. Schembri has denied any wrongdoing. In Delia’s view, Malta has fallen victim to a kind of “amoral familism” in which wealthy and well-connected clans put enriching themselves and their relatives above all else. Some locals, while acknowledging the blight of overdevelopment, privately defended it on those terms, arguing that those who exploited the flawed rules were blameless — victims of financial incentives too attractive to resist. THE VITALS SCANDAL On the face of it, the plans in 2015 to privatize three crumbling hospitals took the same logic that characterized Muscat’s boom — quick growth through private deals — and applied it to Malta’s failing public services.  As outlined by top officials, the idea was to hand over Karin Grech, Gozo General and St. Luke’s hospitals to a homegrown health care consortium, Vitals Global Healthcare, which would renovate the hospitals along the lines of a “health tourism” model that it could export across Europe. But despite the €456 million infusion from the government, Vitals failed to deliver on many of its commitments, according to a scathing report by the National Audit Office in 2021. In 2017, after dozens of deadlines were missed, the concession was handed over to a local subsidiary of the U.S.-based Steward Health Care, which then missed its own deadlines and declared bankruptcy amid a hail of lawsuits in 2024, prompting federal investigations in the U.S. The concession itself was ultimately annulled after a Maltese court deemed it “fraudulent.” According to the audit office and a 1,200-page magisterial inquiry, it was a ruse from the get-go. Advertisement In reality, Vitals was a thinly capitalized shell company conjured by a group led by Shaukat Ali, a prominent Pakistani businessman who was “involved at the highest levels of Colonel Gaddafi’s notoriously corrupt regime in Libya,” the inquiry concluded. Ali, it said, concealed the involvement of key Muscat allies — Schembri, the former chief of staff, and Konrad Mizzi, a former energy minister. The whole thing, in the NAO’s words, was “fraudulently contrived” ahead of time to rig the public tender for the hospital concessions, forgoing the usual due diligence process — and bypassing ministers who might have raised a stink. Through a series of holding companies registered in the names of his business associates (and his multiple wives), Ali also held beneficial ownership of the Steward subsidiary that would take over from Vitals, according to the inquiry. Kickbacks from the concession allegedly flowed through this opaque network into bank accounts held by Muscat, Schembri, Mizzi and a sprawling supporting cast of consultants and middlemen spanning several continents. Muscat, Schembri, Mizzi, Ali and all the other 31 co-defendants have pleaded not guilty.  Investigators allege the arrangement impoverished the three privatized hospitals. Today, Gozo General, which caters to Malta’s second-largest island, reportedly remains derelict and rife with hazards. Karin Grech Hospital, named after a young girl murdered in 1977 by a mailed explosive intended for her father, barely survives in a state of desolate, cobwebbed disrepair as a clinic for the elderly. St. Luke’s, a limestone colossus with serried square windows in the style of a Victorian orphanage, stands unused beside it on a bleak promontory.  Lawyers representing Muscat, Mizzi and Schembri did not respond to multiple requests for comment, nor did Steward Health Care. Ali, through a lawyer, declined to comment, citing a court gag order. He has previously told the Times of Malta that “I feel that we have become the victims of a political football and the subject of vile allegations made by mendacious people.”  FAILED STING The Vitals scandal first trickled into public view through a series of investigative articles and a court case launched as a Hail Mary by a beleaguered opposition leader. Outcry built over the mishandling of the hospitals contract, and in 2019, Repubblika, the anti-corruption NGO, pushed for a broader trial, using a rule allowing civilians to trigger magisterial inquiries.  But since then, the judicial process has continuously run aground under strange and suspicious circumstances.   One notable incident took place bright and early on Jan. 7, 2022, just as the investigation was mounting. In Burmarrad, in the north of the island, a Maltese police convoy blazed down a lonely stretch of rural road, past off-licenses, a 16th-century church and a used car showroom, before taking a swift turn into a narrow side street.  Advertisement As dawn trickled in, the convoy approached its target: Muscat’s family home. It was meant to be the first shot across the bow as the probe got underway — but when the officers arrived to begin their search, trailed by several court experts, Muscat was ready and waiting, having been tipped off after news leaked that the raid was imminent. Far from an explosive and telegenic confrontation, the ex-premier cordially welcomed the officers, led them to his dining room and presented them with a sheaf of preprepared documentary evidence — then, in the aftermath, took to Facebook to blast the raid as an intolerable affront to his privacy. According to Robert Aquilina, the other co-founder of Repubblika, as well as police and court officials familiar with the investigation, the origin of the leak was a covert war between the magistrate’s office and the politically appointed police commissioner.  The police had shown scant initial interest in examining the journalistic allegations around Vitals and offered support for the investigation only when directly ordered to by the court, the police and court officials said, speaking on condition of anonymity to avoid reprisals. That fostered an atmosphere of mutual distrust, prompting prolonged chaos, procedural stonewalling and repeated leaks of the investigative agenda. That’s how Muscat was able to get ahead of the raid; his phone was even wiped clean weeks in advance.  Jason Azzopardi, a prominent lawyer and former politician, testified in separate proceedings last year that he believed the leak came directly from Police Commissioner Angelo Gafà, based on a conversation he had with an unnamed person close to the commissioner. Gafà has in turn accused the inquiring magistrate of keeping him in the dark.  A spokesperson for the Malta Police Force said it “categorically rebuts the baseless allegations” regarding its relationship with the judiciary, which it said it cooperated with fully. The spokesperson added that Gafà was appointed following a public call and an independent selection process.  Advertisement To Aquilina, the co-founder of Repubblika, the affair provided an object lesson in state capture. The 47-year-old activist and notary has a taste for private nooks in public places, and on a morning last year he was sipping a dark coffee in the grand foyer of a hotel just off one of the main thoroughfares of the Maltese capital, Valletta. Sharply dressed, with browline glasses and the studied calm of a veteran conspirator, Aquilina likened the trial to the Italian “Maxi-Trial” of the 1980s, in which hundreds of Sicilian mobsters were rounded up and tried en masse in a specially built courtroom-bunker. But the difference, he said, is that “in Italy, the Mafia has infiltrated the state over many years — in our case, the Mafia has been elected.” CHILLING EFFECT Mafia-style violence, or the threat of it, has also pervaded the Vitals proceedings, which have been menaced by the memory of Daphne Caruana Galizia, a relentless investigative journalist who was among the first to uncover discrepancies in the Vitals concession, and was killed by a roadside bomb attached to the underside of her Peugeot 108 in 2017. After a concerted effort by her bereaved sons and a sprawling group of civil society activists, including Aquilina, the murder was connected to a businessman close to the Muscat government, and several low-level mobsters were recently convicted for carrying it out. Nevertheless, the events have left a conspicuous chilling effect on broader accountability efforts.  For instance, a number of independent court experts critical to the Vitals inquiry are refusing to testify locally. A Serbian court expert, Miroslava Milenović, declined to return to court after Muscat sued her following a dramatic hearing in which she admitted she wasn’t registered in Malta as a chartered accountant. Another, Jeremy Harbinson, has asked to testify from London, saying he would never return to Malta because he fears for his safety. Two people familiar with the matter said Harbinson has been nervous about visiting the country since 2022, when his hotel room was mysteriously broken into and his passport stolen during a trip to assist with the raid on Muscat’s residence. Schembri has since asked the police to investigate Harbinson, too. Neither he nor Milenović could be reached for comment. Aquilina himself told POLITICO that he requires constant police protection — which the police removed in July — and recently had to bat off domestic violence claims, which were ultimately dropped. The police said the removal of protection followed a threat-to-life assessment led by a multidisciplinary oversight committee.  Aggressive interventions by top politicians have also weighed heavily on the proceedings, with figures on both sides of the spectrum exploiting the intensely tribalistic nature of Maltese politics. Even the government has weighed in, seizing on the alleged unreliability of the court experts to dismiss the trial as a stitch-up. As it got underway last May, Prime Minister Robert Abela — Muscat’s successor — went so far as to blast the inquiry as a politically motivated attack by “establishment” forces. In a statement, Abela defended his comments, arguing that the former premier was entitled to the presumption of innocence — but then doubled down, urging POLITICO to “have a closer look at the happenings within the court process.” He also asserted, without offering evidence, that the court experts who refused to testify were hired by way of “opaque” processes and paid “millions of euros.”  Advertisement While some have condemned such comments as judicial interference, they also speak to genuine puzzlement at various aspects of the inquiry that have lent credence to the defendants’ claims of victimhood, including the apparent rift between the police and magistrates’ office, the absence of the court experts and seeming inconsistencies within the inquiry itself.  Consider the case of Central Bank of Malta Governor Edward Scicluna, who served as finance minister under Muscat and stands accused — in one of several parallel trials associated with a raft of lesser charges — of fraud and misappropriation, which he denies. In light of the institutional discord, Scicluna was never interrogated by the police and was notified of the charges against him via a leak to the media. The inquiry’s assessment of him is also contradictory and appears not to back up the fraud claims. Activists worry these sorts of discrepancies could bolster defense lawyers’ arguments that the body of evidence presented in the inquiry is inadmissible. Currently, the parallel proceedings are grinding through a preliminary information-gathering phase; an effective attack on the inquiry’s credibility could result in the evidence being thrown out before the prosecution gets to present it before a jury — killing the proceedings stone dead.  FINAL THROES  Indeed, some are nervous the whole thing will be a flop. Aquilina reckons it could go on until 2028 — and even then, he’s not optimistic much will come of it.  The grinding pace of the trial isn’t just an activist’s lament: It’s reflected in continued criticism from international organizations, including the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development and the Council of Europe, which have accused Malta of being too slow in implementing anti-corruption reforms. The EU’s own annual rule-of-law report has consistently highlighted an absence of high-level convictions.  Prime Minister Abela rejected these institutional slights, arguing that he had strengthened Malta’s anti-corruption and anti-money-laundering authorities, bolstered the independence of the police and magistrates, and changed the rules around magisterial inquiries to prevent the system being “abused for partisan political aims.” (Critics say he made it harder for NGOs to trigger them.) He also pointed to recent praise from the Council of Europe and added that his administration had improved protections for journalists.  Advertisement “Our robust anti-corruption strategy has also served as a deterrent and the efficacy of such a strategy should not be measured by the volume of arraignments or convictions, but rather by the way such a strategy minimizes or eliminates corruption at the roots,” Abela said. He also emphasized that his government was pushing new legislation to support “sensible and responsible planning” and force “individuals who have erred in the past” to pay retroactive compensation.  But for those aching for a complete overhaul of Malta’s cozy culture of business, politics and corruption, there’s little cause for optimism. Despite the endless scandal, Labour maintains a consistent lead in the polls — a testament to the economic growth that took hold under its watch. The question is whether it can survive its links to Muscat. The former premier has been out of government since he resigned in 2020, after the investigation into the Caruana Galizia killing singled out a prominent tycoon with links to his ally, Schembri. (Both Muscat and Schembri have denied any involvement in the killing.) But he still looms large over the Labour Party, and many people made rich by his policies feel like they “owe” him, said one government official. On the flip side, recent polls suggest that the Nationalist Party is narrowing the gap under new leadership, with some arguing that Abela’s continued contact with Muscat-era officials — the premier said last month that he still talks to Schembri — could alienate moderates.  But a change in government might not matter much. Senior Labour and government officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, argued that Labour’s problems were not unique and that the courting of foreign investors began under the Nationalist government that secured EU accession. It’s true enough: The country’s most influential property tycoon, Joseph Portelli, who is unconnected to the hospitals scandal, makes a point of donating money to both parties. (Portelli says he expects nothing in return.) The status quo is indeed sustained by an irresistible economic logic. In the view of Alexander Demarco, the deputy governor of Malta’s central bank, supporting the vast numbers of foreigners who enter the country requires continuous development — and on such a tiny island, the only way for developers to build is up. Blocking builders of high-rises could be a “serious impediment to economic growth,” he said, while emphasizing that such development should be limited to special areas. The Vitals debacle, meanwhile, continues apace. Recently, an international arbitration court ruled against government efforts to recoup some $466 million from Steward. Abela, during a heated parliamentary debate, said the judgment proved no money was stolen. Opposition lawmakers argued that the ruling — which explicitly holds “no view” on whether collusion occurred — did no such thing. Advertisement Still, some dare to hope that the trial around the deal, whatever its outcome, will serve as a break from a culture of impunity that has thwarted efforts to strengthen Malta’s institutions. “When there’s a public inquiry, people realize that politicians are not gods, and that they can be held accountable,” said Matthew Caruana Galizia, an investigative journalist and one of the three sons of Daphne, the murdered journalist.  The bigger struggle will be to keep the momentum going. “While these people are being brought to trial, it’s also the system itself being brought to trial,” Caruana Galizia said. “Unless something is done about this impunity … there will be more of this kind of crime, more corruption, more contract killings.” ‘A COUNTRY HAS TO SURVIVE’ All of this, perhaps, is the inevitable fate of a tiny, resource-poor, services-heavy economy whose politicians have little to offer beyond privileged access to a market captured by private interests. Scicluna, the central bank governor, echoed that sentiment last year atop Valletta’s lush botanical gardens. A professorial 79-year-old who was summoned to serve under Muscat in 2013 after a long stint as a TV pollster, the former finance minister said he was proud of his tenure, during which he reduced Malta’s deficit and boosted financial stability. In his view, Malta’s woes are the result of bad actors exploiting loopholes created by otherwise legitimate government policy.  “If you bought a boat because you made a lot of profit from a government contract, then good luck to you — this is how people get rich,” he said. He took pains to add that he was referring to “legitimate” contracts. Advertisement But on the whole, Malta’s transformation has been to the good, he said. Under the cool evening sun, he turned to gaze over a low-rise wall giving way to a precipitous drop, and gestured below at a vista of seemingly boundless delights: sparkling Mediterranean waters dotted with colorful fishing boats, deep creeks giving way to soaring defensive ramparts, a small town of old limestone villas and pretty churches.  Right below, a little closer, he pointed out the wide bay and array of inlets that lie to Valletta’s east. These, he said, were the basis of a grand natural harbor that once made it such an attractive target for foreign fleets.  “A country has to survive,” he murmured, acknowledging that tiny nations have always had to find canny ways to win the protection of bigger powers. Now, of course, the Ottoman corsairs rot in the depths, and the bays are filled with gleaming superyachts and mountainous cruise ships. Perhaps such latter-day conquerors of Malta recognize that to get at the island today, there’s no need for a hard-fought siege. Instead, its leaders simply invite them in.

A conservative lawmaker in Berlin called for action against German conductor Justus Frantz, who traveled to Moscow this week to receive the Order of Friendship from Russian President Vladimir Putin. Christian Democratic Union member of parliament Roland Theis told POLITICO’s Berlin Playbook Thursday that German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier should revoke Frantz’s Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany. “Anyone who aligns themselves with a dictator whose, until now, hybrid military aggressions are directed against our country, can no longer be a bearer of the Federal Order of Merit,” Theis told POLITICO. Putin on Tuesday awarded the 81-year-old German musician, saying: “For many years, Justus Frantz has made a fruitful contribution to fostering closer relations and mutual enrichment between the cultures of Russia and the Federal Republic of Germany.” In February 2023, Frantz signed the controversial “Manifesto for Peace”, an online petition by left-wing politician Sahra Wagenknecht calling for negotiations with Russia. According to his website, Frantz has performed with the Berlin, New York and Vienna philharmonic orchestras, as well the London Symphony Orchestra. Reports say he is an admirer of legendary Russian composers Pyotr Tchaikovsky and Sergei Rachmaninoff.

PARIS — A cinematic four-man scheme to steal an estimated €88 million in jewelry from the world’s most-visited museum stunned the globe. But not those who work there. “Among colleagues, we’ve been saying for months that it’s incredible that nothing dramatic has happened yet,” Elise Muller, a room supervisor and trade unionist at the Louvre Museum, said in an interview after the robbery. France — and Paris in particular — may love to showcase the country’s cultural exceptionalism, but critics say the audacious heist is the latest proof that the state hasn’t been putting money where its mouth is when it comes to the Louvre. Complaints of underfunding at the museum had brewed for months before the robbery on Sunday, which took only minutes. Louvre General Administrator Kim Pham told lawmakers during a parliamentary hearing in February of the “poor condition, sometimes dilapidated state” of its infrastructure and said it was “absolutely necessary” to install updates, including to overhaul security. Muller said that union representatives like herself have “repeatedly and with insistence” warned the French Ministry of Culture of the severity of the problems linked to underfunding — including “reducing staff specialized in safety and surveillance” — to no avail. And a confidential report from France’s top court of auditors, which POLITICO saw parts of, highlighted “persistent” delays in replacing security equipment such as cameras — one-third of the rooms in the Louvre wing where the heist took place reportedly have none. The audit, which is conducted on a regular basis, said the rate at which the museum’s security infrastructure was becoming obsolete outpaced the investments made to address the problem. Though French President Emmanuel Macron announced plans earlier this year for a €700 million to €800 million, privately funded effort to modernize the museum, those changes aren’t expected to be finished until 2031. Peter Fowler, CEO of the British Westminster Group, which handles security for the Tower of London, said he suspected complacency was a factor that the robbers took advantage of. Complaints of underfunding at the museum had brewed for months before the robbery on Sunday, which took only minutes. | Ferdinand Knapp/POLITICO “How easy it was … shows you how lax the security was,” he said. When asked for comment on allegations of security failures, representatives for the museum referred POLITICO to an online statement, which quoted the French culture minister saying that the Louvre’s safety mechanisms had been “operational.” ‘WE WERE DEFEATED’ More than 230 years since Louis XVI was guillotined just outside the Louvre, there are again calls for heads to roll. The first scalp the Parisian left and far right are gunning for is that of Culture Minister Rachida Dati, a fiery, outspoken conservative who plans to run for Paris mayor in next year’s election. Dati admitted that the success may have been partly tied to administrative shortcomings, but she argued that responsibility was shared after “40 years of abandonment during which problems were swept under the rug.” “We always focused on the security of cultural institutions for visitors, much less for that of the artworks,” Dati said in an interview with broadcaster M6. There were also calls for the Louvre’s director, Laurence des Cars, to step down. The first scalp the Parisian left and far right are gunning for is that of Culture Minister Rachida Dati, a fiery, outspoken conservative who plans to run for Paris mayor in next year’s election. | Sadak Souici/EPA Des Cars delivered her first public remarks since the heist on Wednesday before the cultural committee in the French Senate, the upper house of parliament. Des Cars faced tough questions challenging her leadership despite being grilled in the Senate, where debates are typically more courteous than the rowdier, more powerful directly elected National Assembly. Over two hours, the stern-looking 59-year-old curator — showing the strain of what have been the most trying days of her career — spoke with gravitas, attempting, not without difficulty, to assert that the Louvre’s security procedures had been properly followed despite the break-in’s success. “Despite our efforts, we were defeated,” she said. Des Cars added that she has throughout her career tried to draw attention “to the state of deterioration and general obsolescence of the Louvre, its buildings and its infrastructure.” In the heist’s aftermath, several press reports alleged financial mismanagement by des Cars and suggested she had allocated resources to nonurgent needs, including a luxurious dining hall. Des Cars said the accusations had been “distorted” and amounted to “personal attacks.” Laurence des Cars faced tough questions challenging her leadership despite being grilled in the Senate, where debates are typically more courteous than the rowdier, more powerful directly elected National Assembly. | Pool photo by Sarah Meyssonnier The aforementioned dining room, she pushed back, was designed to be a “meeting room which is not exclusively reserved for the Louvre’s president.” She also disputed aspects of the leaked auditors’ report, insisting that there had been no delays in planned investments to upgrade security and that the document did not yet reflect new measures she intended to present. During a Cabinet meeting on Wednesday, Macron called on his ministers to “keep their cool” amid the uproar surrounding the Louvre heist while investigations continue. MACRON THE BUILDER The Louvre renovation was supposed to be, much like the restoration of the Notre-Dame Cathedral following the devastating fire there five years ago, a crown jewel of Macron’s legacy. (But one that thieves wouldn’t be able to run off with.) Earlier this year, he announced plans for a “new Louvre Renaissance” — an expensive overhaul of the museum to update its infrastructure and security as well as move its most-visited painting, Leonardo da Vinci’s “Mona Lisa,” into its own dedicated room. The project has now taken on added urgency. Macron has requested proposals to accelerate implementation of its security-related aspects — including next-generation surveillance cameras, enhanced perimeter detection and a new central security control room — to be on his desk by next week, government spokesperson Maud Bregeon said Wednesday. Earlier this year, Emmanuel Macron announced plans for a “new Louvre Renaissance.” | Pool photo by Bertrand Guay/EPA That, of course, comes at a cost. And for Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu’s fragile minority government, which faces an uphill battle in its attempt to rein in public finances while also investing billions in priorities like defense and reindustrialization, museum security may not seem like the most pressing reason to dip into state coffers “There are budgetary constraints, but financial promises for the Louvre have been made, and they need to be kept,” said Valérie Baud, who represents the Louvre’s personnel on the museum’s board of directors. “The Louvre is 68 percent self-funded, which is huge. As for the rest of the budget, the state can no longer impose cuts on the museum,” she added.

THESE STADIUMS EXPOSE PUTIN’S BRUTAL WAR ON UKRAINIAN CULTURE International megastars once performed in arenas that Russian forces have bombarded — or turned into propaganda stages. By DARIA MESHCHERIAKOVA in Kyiv, Ukraine Photo by Ian Walton/Getty Images Before Vladimir Putin’s invading forces came swarming over the border, eastern Ukraine was the country’s beating heart of sports.  Now, that has been all but wiped out in a trail of devastation.  Moscow’s attempt to extinguish Ukrainian culture can be seen through the prism of prominent stadiums across the region, one of which even played host to footballers including Cristiano Ronaldo and Xavi, and pop megastars such as Beyoncé and Rihanna. In several cities, gleaming sporting and cultural landmarks now resemble haunting, silent scenes from a zombie apocalypse movie. And on the Crimean Peninsula, illegally occupied by Russia since 2014, there’s another story: The repurposing of Ukrainian arenas as stages to further the Kremlin’s narrative.  Advertisement “Aggressors deliberately try to destroy normal life and erase collective identity,” Glenn Micallef, European commissioner for culture and sport, told POLITICO. “Sport is essential in forming identity, and that is what the Russian aggressor wants to erase.” He warned that sporting federations “must ensure no platform for propaganda is provided.” From Donetsk to Mariupol, and Luhansk to Crimea, POLITICO traced the fate of Ukraine’s sports and cultural facilities under Russian occupation to reveal the depth of Moscow’s war on its neighbor’s culture. DONBAS ARENA, DONETSK On Aug. 29, Donetsk’s once-glittering Donbas Arena turned 16. For 11 of those years, it has stood in Russian-occupied territory — abandoned, damaged and stripped of its original purpose. Opened in 2009 by Shakhtar Donetsk’s billionaire owner Rinat Akhmetov, the $400 million stadium was Ukraine’s first officially “elite” European football arena. With a capacity of 52,000, it hosted Euro 2012 matches, Champions League games featuring iconic clubs like Barcelona and Juventus, and concerts by Beyoncé and Rihanna.  For a brief moment, it symbolized Ukraine’s ambition to join Europe’s sporting elite. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- > Донбас Арена 💔 > Без сліз важко дивитися. Там, де «рускій мір», там всюди занепад та смерть. > Але ми обовʼязково повернемося 🇺🇦 pic.twitter.com/SsKOnZVUA1 > > — Oleg Barkov (@OlegBarkov3) September 4, 2023 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- That era abruptly ended in 2014, when Russia’s war in the Donbas forced Shakhtar to flee. The stadium was shelled and its glass façade shattered, and later seized by Russian-backed militants. In a symbolic gesture of Russification, they even replaced the Ukrainian “a” in Shakhtar’s name with the Russian “e,” making it Shakhter, as they set up a new club from scratch. “I had fought in many stadiums,” American boxer Paulie Malignaggi told POLITICO. He defeated Ukraine’s Vyacheslav Senchenko there in 2012 to claim the WBA welterweight title. “But this one stood out as the most modern and impressive. Everything was state-of-the-art — comfortable dressing rooms, sleek facilities and even a space for hosting after-parties. That fight was one of the defining moments of my career. The memories are bittersweet now.” VOLODYMYR BOYKO STADIUM, MARIUPOL After Russia’s lethal occupation of Mariupol in 2022, the city’s main stadium fell into the hands of an armed unit known as Española, formed from Russian football hooligans.  Videos released in May 2023 showed militants in Russian uniforms firing weapons and waving Soviet and Russian flags from the stands. The arena, which had installed Ukraine’s most advanced hybrid turf in 2021, now lies in ruins. Its main stand is riddled with shell damage and the pitch withered away without water during the summer of 2022, amid some of Russia’s most ferocious military bombardment of the entire war. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Mariupol’s other sports facilities shared the same fate. The club’s training base was bulldozed and replaced by a Russian military academy. The Illichivets indoor sports complex, once the pride of the region, sustained dozens of direct hits from Russian shells and mortars. Its artificial turf field, installed in 2018, is almost completely destroyed — while the unique membrane roof and glass façade now require massive reconstruction. Behind Moscow’s glossy propaganda selling Mariupol as a “new haven” for Russian settlers, locals see only ruined homes and the wreckage of their city’s sporting soul. Advertisement AVANHARD STADIUM, LUHANSK The Avanhard Stadium was once the pride and joy of Luhansk — and it has, for me, a uniquely personal connection.   It was here that Zorya made history in 1972, becoming one of only three teams not from a capital city ever to win the Soviet Union’s football championship. After independence in 1991, the club clawed its way up from the lower leagues in Ukraine to European competition and, when Zorya returned to the top flight, the 22,000-seat stadium was always packed. Growing up in Luhansk in the 1990s and early 2000s, I remember standing in line with my father for hours, hoping to get tickets for our beloved 6th sector. The game was a fortnightly highlight, and a special connection with my dad. Luhansk also had a deep reverence for the team; everyone knew the players and greeted them on the streets.  And when the final whistle blew, the song “Luhanshchyna” filled the stadium, celebrating the region’s landscapes, history, hospitality and beauty. The tradition followed the team to Zaporizhzhia when it moved after the initial 2014 invasion, but there the song sounded different — a reminder to Zorya supporters that they may never again gather at their true home ground. Today, in a cruel twist, that same song is used by the separatists for their own celebrations, stripping it of the meaning it once held for the club and its fans. “Even in the first league [the second division], we never had fewer than 8,000 fans,” Zorya legend Nikita Kamenyuka told POLITICO. “When we played Karpaty Lviv, 18,000 came. It was incredible. Playing in Luhansk gave us energy.” In 2014, just after a renovation, Avanhard was shelled, seized by the so-called Luhansk People’s Republic backed by Putin, and abandoned. Propaganda concerts and matches played by a fake Zorya appeared.  Today, on the site where I have so many family ties and memories, its steps are crumbling, the traditionally yellow-blue seats are fading under the harsh sun and the athletic track around the pitch is cracking. The Russians claim they will “renovate” it and make it better. LOKOMOTIV STADIUM, CRIMEA Simferopol’s Lokomotiv Stadium, once home to Tavriya — Ukraine’s first national football champion after independence — has faced a strange fate since Russia’s occupation of Crimea.  Closed for seven years, it underwent a costly “reconstruction” before reopening in 2021 as a so-called training center for Crimean teams.  In 2025, it hosted a match between the “national teams” of occupied Crimea and the self-proclaimed Donetsk “republic.” The exhibition match, held as part of the “Day of Russia” celebrations, took place before a sparse crowd. Players entered the field under Russian and DPR flags, overseen by FIFA referee Yuri Vaks of Simferopol, who served as a Ukrainian league official until 2017. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Tavriya’s training base near Bakhchysarai lies abandoned, while other Crimean stadiums illegally host Russian league games, defying international football rules. “Holding matches by Russia in temporarily occupied Crimea is a blatant violation of international law and yet another manifestation of Russian hybrid aggression. Matches in stadiums that Russia seized along with our land are an attempt to make it seem as if nothing has happened. But it has,” Matviy Bidny, Ukraine’s minister of youth and sports, told POLITICO.  “Every game under the Russian flag — anywhere, but especially in Ukrainian Crimea — is an attempt to whitewash a crime,” he added. Advertisement