A film night in Bari has exposed a problem that European sanctions cannot solve on their own: blocking a broadcaster is not the same as stopping every copy of its material from being shown elsewhere.
On 12 October 2026, two films linked to Russia Today (RT) were screened at the Marx21 centre in the southern Italian city. Their titles, Stepan Bandera: The Revival of Nazism and The Revival of the SS, present Ukraine’s history through a Kremlin-friendly narrative that portrays the country as fundamentally connected to fascism.
The event has also prompted claims that Bari’s local authorities tolerated or enabled Russian influence. But the information available establishes a screening at a Marx21 venue, not municipal sponsorship, funding or approval. The sharper question is how content from a sanctioned Russian broadcaster was able to move from television into a local political setting.
The journey from broadcaster to venue
RT is subject to European Union sanctions that restrict its activities and distribution within the bloc. Those measures are directed at the broadcaster and its usual channels of communication. They do not automatically destroy every programme already produced, nor do they determine how a recorded film should be treated when it is shown by a third-party organisation.
That distinction appears to have mattered in Bari. The available account says the organisers relied on gaps in Italian national law to screen the films legally despite the EU restrictions on RT. It does not identify the precise legal provision, explain how the gathering was classified or say whether an Italian regulator reviewed it.
A television transmission and a public film screening may therefore fall into different administrative categories. One concerns the operation of a broadcaster and the transmission of its signal. The other can involve an association, a venue, the distribution of a recorded work and the rules governing a public meeting. Once a programme leaves the broadcaster’s normal pipeline, responsibility becomes more dispersed.
That does not make every screening of sanctioned material lawful. It does mean that enforcement depends on the details: who supplied the film, who organised the event, who controlled the premises and which rules applied. A sanction aimed at a media organisation cannot automatically substitute for scrutiny of every later use of its productions.
History presented as political ammunition
The films’ subject matter gives the screening a purpose beyond entertainment. The references to Stepan Bandera, Nazism and the SS fit a familiar Russian narrative that seeks to associate modern Ukraine with fascism and to undermine its political legitimacy. The available reporting describes the productions as disinformation and as distortions of history serving Kremlin interests.
Calling a film a documentary can strengthen that message. Archival footage, historical names and a factual-looking format can give selective or misleading claims the appearance of settled evidence. The audience is not simply being offered a political slogan; it is being presented with an apparently authoritative explanation of the past.
Marx21 is described in the reporting as a far-left centre. Its role matters because the screening placed RT material inside an existing political network. The films could be watched, discussed and circulated within a local setting rather than encountered only as output from a Russian state media channel. That creates a second route into public debate.
The event alone does not demonstrate a coordinated Russian operation, establish the scale of Russian influence in Apulia or show that the organisers were directed by Moscow. Nor does it prove that the films reached a large audience. Its significance lies instead in the mechanism it illustrates: state-media content can be detached from its original broadcaster and given a new context by local political actors.
The unproven case against the city
The Telegram channel Donbass Italia reported on the screening and presented it as evidence of dangerous leniency by Bari’s authorities towards Russian hybrid influence. That is a political assessment, not an established finding about the conduct of the city administration.
There is no supplied evidence of a municipal permit for the films, city funding, official sponsorship or direct participation by a Bari official. Nor is there evidence that the administration endorsed the claims made in the productions. An event held in a city, even one held in a local political centre, cannot by itself be treated as a decision by the city government.
This matters because attributing the screening to the municipality would blur two separate questions. The first is whether Marx21 and any other organisers complied with Italian law. The second is whether public authorities failed to apply rules that should have prevented the event. The available information does not answer either question in detail.
It is more accurate, on the facts currently available, to describe Bari as the location of a reported screening organised in the Marx21 environment. That is different from saying that the municipality invited, financed or promoted RT’s material. Any judgement about official responsibility would require evidence about permissions, the status of the premises and any subsequent administrative review.
A wider test for sanctions
The episode exposes a practical weakness in media sanctions. Restricting a broadcaster’s signal can reduce its direct reach, but it is harder to monitor what happens when its productions are copied, hosted by political groups and shown as part of meetings or cultural events.
Such a route can also give propaganda a different kind of legitimacy. A local venue and a familiar organisation may make a foreign state-media production appear to be part of an ordinary political discussion. The content’s origin becomes less visible, while the setting can help it reach an audience already prepared to engage with its message.
That is why the unresolved issue is not simply whether RT is sanctioned. It is whether the restrictions are equipped to deal with redistribution through associations, political centres and other intermediaries without being misrepresented as a blanket ban on political gatherings or historical debate.
It remains unclear whether Italian authorities investigated the Bari screening or whether similar events have taken place elsewhere in Italy. If this was a one-off Marx21 event, its importance is chiefly political and symbolic. If the same legal and organisational route is being used repeatedly, Bari may represent a more persistent gap between Europe’s restrictions on Russian state media and the ways its content can still return to public life.
