The Berlin Philharmonic Music Director Kirill Petrenko has announced he donating money to launch a campaign for Ukraine relief.

The conductor announced that he will donate 100,000 Euros to launch the campaign at the Baden-Baden Easter Festival.

He said in a press conference, “The festival will be overshadowed by the terrible war. People need all possible support from us.

During the press conference, he also warned against a boycott of Russian artists noting, “If people are being punished for Putin’s atrocities simply because of their nationality, then we are like the other side… You can see from all around that Russian works have been discontinued. Russian artists are repeatedly boycotted and locked out. I don’t think that’s right.”

Petrenko was among the first voices to express his condemnation of the war and stated, “Putin’s insidious attack on Ukraine, which violates international law, is a knife in the back of the entire peaceful world. It is also an attack on the arts, which, as we know, unite across all borders.”