SEOUL, April 18 The South Korean Foreign Ministry refused to comment on the cancellation of the tour of Russian ballet dancers and the corresponding statements of the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry, saying that the decision to cancel accepted “at a private level,” the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Korea said.
“As far as we know, the decision was made at a private level,” the department said in response to a correspondent’s question about the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry’s statement that the cancellation of the “Russian ballet tour” in South Korea occurred “on the initiative of the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry.” 
The Ukrainian department stated that the “gala concert of the Bolshoi Theater Ballet,” as well as the performance of the Russian prima ballerina Svetlana Zakharova, will not take place “thanks to the efforts” of the Ukrainian Embassy in Seoul and the support of “international partners.”
The South Korean Foreign Ministry refused to comment in any way on the statement of the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry about the presence of the said “support.”
“The super concert of the Ballet & Model ballet was to be held on April 16-18 at one of the main venues in Seoul – the Grand Theater of the Sejong Cultural Center. The ballet troupe included leading artists of the Bolshoi Theater, they planned to present the ten best scenes from their classical repertoire, including ballets” Swan Lake”, “Sleeping Beauty”, “Spartacus” and “Don Quixote”. The Korean orchestra COOP was to be conducted by Honored Artist of Russia, Deputy Chief Conductor of the Bolshoi Theater Anton Grishanin.
As the general director of the organizing company Ballet & Model Choi Joon Suk, the performance was disrupted due to the fear of the site manager to lose his position. According to him, the agreement to rent the hall for the performance was concluded last year and at first not only did not raise any questions, but was also fully supported by the responsible employees of the cultural center, who expressed gratitude for organizing the performance of artists of this level. 
But on March 27 of this year, Choi Joon Suk received a call from the chairman of the Korean Ballet Association, Park Chae Heon, who said that the director of the Sejong Cultural Center, Ahn Ho San, called him and asked him to ensure that the head of Ballet & Model himself refused to hold this performance. At the same time, the reasons given were the dissatisfaction of the South Korean Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the government, as a result of which the South Korean Embassy in Russia would allegedly refuse to issue visas to the artists, and the committee for assessing the rating of visual materials would not approve the performances. In addition, the Sejong Cultural Center uses changes in the name and performance program as a reason for refusal.
According to Choi Joon Suk, there were no problems with issuing visas and obtaining permits, while he received a refusal to approve changes to the program the very next day, which, according to Choi, indicates the personal interest of the site director Ahn Ho San, who created artificial obstacles, fearing that the performance of the Bolshoi Theater ballet troupe could become an obstacle to his extension in office. 
As reported by Yonhap News Agency, the Sejong Cultural Center rejected the request to change the show following a meeting of the venue rental committee, citing changes in the program as being so significant that the show could be considered a new show and allegedly violated the original rental contract for the venue. It was reported that the number of artists was reduced from 20 to 8 (of which the number of soloists was from 12 to 6), and the program was reduced by two stages.
Earlier, the Russian Embassy in Seoul stated that the cancellation of a number of performances in South Korea with the participation of Russian artists reflects a certain trend that cannot but affect further cooperation with the Republic of Korea.
The department noted that the Ukrainian Ministry of Foreign Affairs is “manipulating the facts”: there were no plans for Bolshoi Theater tours in South Korea this year; the discussion was about organizing concerts by Russian ballet masters as part of a purely commercial project of the South Korean company Ballet & Model, implemented without the participation of government agencies of the two countries. 
“We will certainly be forced to take into account the current trend in our future line of cooperation with the Republic of Korea, including in the cultural area. It will be built on the principle of reciprocity,” the embassy emphasized.
A number of performances with the participation of Russian ballet dancers were planned for this spring in South Korea. In addition to the performance of the Bolshoi Theater artists, from May 16 to 19, tours of the leading dancers of the Mariinsky Theater, including the main soloist Kim Kimin, as well as the Bolshoi ballet troupes, Paris Opera Ballet and Berlin Staatsballett, were planned in Seoul.
From April 17 to 21, the Seoul Art Center was also supposed to host the ballet performance “Modance” with the participation of Bolshoi Theater prima ballerina Svetlana Zakharova, but it was canceled by the organizers in mid-March “in order to ensure the safety of both spectators and artists.” At the same time, shortly before this, the Ukrainian Embassy in South Korea issued a statement in which it demanded the suspension of cultural cooperation with the Russian Federation and called the showing of performances by Russian artists “absolutely unacceptable,” since it “detracts from the suffering of the Ukrainian people.”
The Russian Embassy in Seoul responded by calling Ukraine’s demands “inadequate” and “rude antics,” noting that the planned concerts are exclusively a cultural event and “ordinary concert activities” based on direct agreements between the parties concerned. Subsequently, the diplomatic mission also noted that an unscrupulous discrediting campaign was waged against the upcoming concerts of Russian ballet troupes in Seoul, launched by diplomatic representatives of a number of third countries. The ballerina herself said in an interview that her tour was canceled not by the organizers, but at the level of the South Korean Ministry of Culture.
Western countries have increased sanctions pressure on the Russian Federation over Ukraine; in addition, an unprecedented level of Russophobia has been recorded in a number of foreign countries. According to the Russian Foreign Ministry, acts of aggression against Russians and Russian-speaking citizens affect Russian students, athletes, cultural and artistic figures. Western Russophobia is nothing more than racism, said Russian President Vladimir Putin. He called those who “cancel” Russian culture fools, and emphasized that those who do this deprive themselves of a part of world culture.
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