The man behind the burning Kremlin Zelensky’s most talked-about painting was created by an artist from Georgia
A painting by Georgian artist Sandro Antadze depicting the Moscow Kremlin in flames drew global attention after Time Magazine published a photo of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky posing in front of it in his bedroom. After tracking down the man behind the painting, Novaya Gazeta Europe published a profile of Antadze and his work, examining how a man known for his playful, reflective pieces came to paint such a haunting image, how the painting found its way into Zelensky’s collection, and what parallels Antadze sees between his country’s political struggles and Ukraine’s own fight to defend its sovereignty. Meduza shares a translation of their reporting.
The Kremlin in Zelensky’s bedroom
In a recent Time Magazine article, journalist Simon Shuster offered a glimpse into Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s bedroom — a stark contrast to the gilded pilasters of his official office. Tucked away behind the more formal rooms is a small space with a single bed and a set of paintings chosen by Zelensky himself. “They are not museum pieces,” Shuster wrote, noting that similar works might sell for “a few hundred dollars at most” — but they hold symbolic weight for the president.
One painting shows a Russian warship sinking in the Black Sea. Another depicts Ukrainian soldiers fighting inside Russian territory. The third — reportedly Zelensky’s favorite — portrays the Moscow Kremlin in flames. According to Zelensky, each of the paintings is “about victory.”
A photo of the room, which circulated widely in recent days, sparked outrage in Moscow. While the Kremlin still stands and Ukraine continues to endure daily bombardments, it was this image on Zelensky’s wall — a work of art, not a weapon — that drew the ire of Russian officials.
Maria Zakharova, spokesperson for Russia’s Foreign Ministry, dismissed it in one jab: “Psych ward.” State Duma deputy Mikhail Sheremet suggested Zelensky “seems to have lost his mind,” while Vladimir Dzhabarov, deputy chairman of the Federation Council's Foreign Affairs Committee, called it “complete nonsense” and insisted that “no one here would ever think of commissioning a painting of [Kyiv’s] Khreshchatyk or Bankova Street in flames.” Notably, none of them acknowledged that the full-scale war Russia launched in February 2022 began with actual missile strikes on Kyiv.
A peaceful man named Sandro
Sandro Antadze is a soft-spoken 53-year-old from Tbilisi. In an interview with the Georgian TV channel Formula, he walks around his studio in a pink T-shirt and a jacket with patch pockets, exuding warmth. He comes across more like a teddy bear than someone who’d like to see the Kremlin burn.
As is often the case with artists, Antadze struggles to explain in words what he meant to express through his work. Speaking about his painting of the Kremlin, he says the process left a strong impression on him too. But that, he adds, was the point. He called the painting Dream from the very beginning. And most importantly, the fire, he insists, is symbolic.
“It’s a message to Russia’s politics and government — not to its people. In the painting, you can see buildings to the left of the Kremlin, their windows lit up. That means it doesn’t affect the people. I don’t want Moscow to explode or millions to die… It’s a symbolic fire — a critique of policy,” Antadze explains.
“Take Lenin in the mausoleum — I don’t understand why, in the 21st century, they still keep him there like a mummy of a pharaoh in a pyramid, like some kind of deity. And they still call themselves Orthodox Christians. In Georgia, we call Russians co-religionists, but who else has something like that? Only China, where there’s a cult of Mao Zedong.”
As it turns out, Dream wasn’t a one-off. Antadze has created an entire series of paintings depicting the Kremlin in flames. They aren’t copies, he says — each is a different canvas, though painted from the same perspective.
“I’m a very peaceful person. I don’t want war. But when I see injustice, when entire countries and millions of people suffer at the hands of an insatiable empire — I think this is a valid response,” he says.
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Antadze explains, hit him hard. “Russia still can’t give up the role of occupier and aggressor. It’s a huge country, but it’s always trying to grab something,” he says. “In Georgia, we’ve been victims of that policy for many years. […] My painting reflects the pain and bitterness that have built up over a long time.”
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Sandro Antadze trained as an architectural artist, but in his youth, he was also an avid alpine skier. In the 1990s, during yet another war and economic crisis in Georgia, he won a ski competition — the prize was a ticket to London. When he left for the U.K., he packed 20 of his small paintings, just in case he needed to barter them for food. Instead, Antadze managed to exhibit his work at one of London’s most prestigious galleries — and sold every piece.
When he returned to Tbilisi, he founded Cafe Gallery, one of the city’s most bohemian nightclubs. Located in a historic two-story building off of Rustaveli Avenue, the space quickly became an underground hub for art shows, top local DJs, and queer parties.
Even as he branched out into nightlife, Antadze never gave up painting. His solo exhibitions have been held in the United Kingdom, France, the Netherlands, Kazakhstan, and South Korea — and, until the 2008 war, in Russia as well.
Antadze is best known for three major series: Positivism, a collection of smiling animals; Aircraft and Space, a celebration of determination and freedom; and Everything is Changing, a nostalgic meditation on aging objects. Within that playful and reflective body of work, a burning Kremlin appears as a sharp and unexpected interruption.
Mailing the Kremlin to Kyiv
Antadze doesn’t consider himself a famous artist — though his friends would beg to differ. And the “ambitious idea” to send one of his paintings to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky? He chalks it up to something mystical.
“This painting was unlike anything I usually do. It felt like it had a kind of destiny, a mission — it was supposed to do something,” Antadze recalls. “I started wondering where it should hang, who needed to see it. That’s when this bold idea came to me: send it to Kyiv, to the Ukrainian government, to Zelensky. It felt like the right place.”
It was the early days of the full-scale war. Antadze posted online, asking if anyone had a connection to Zelensky and mentioning that he wanted to send the president a painting. “I didn’t expect the postal service to even be working,” he says. “I assumed the painting might get lost or never make it at all. But what mattered to me was that I tried.”
The package made its way — slowly — to Ukraine. Eventually, Antadze learned the painting had been delivered to someone in the President’s Office. He never got confirmation that Zelensky had actually seen it. “I figured [they] just stuck it in some corner,” he says, without any bitterness.
Two years passed. Then, at the start of 2024, a friend sent him a video of Zelensky’s New Year’s address. At the end of the broadcast, Antadze’s painting — depicting the Kremlin engulfed in flames — appears on screen. “Those who brought hell to our land will one day see it outside their own windows,” Zelensky says.
“I was shocked at how accurately Zelensky captured the exact message I tried to put into that painting,” Antadze says. “It was incredible. This absurd idea had become something meaningful. Even now, I get emotional thinking about how that could have happened.”
Later, through the Time Magazine article, Antadze discovered that the painting had been placed on permanent display in Zelensky’s bedroom.
Recently, Antadze’s work has begun to reflect his own country’s turbulent politics. The artist has been moved by the seemingly endless anti-government protests along Tbilisi’s Rustaveli Avenue. One canvas features the Georgian parliament building, shrouded in gloom, illuminated not by the moon but by a glowing soccer ball — a nod to Georgia’s soccer player–turned-president. In another, Lady Justice appears in black and white, her scales broken, her hand gripping a police baton. A third, vivid and ominous, shows police officers dressed as Santa Claus guarding a Christmas tree from protesters.
Antadze describes himself as someone with a “European mindset” and insists that Georgia is a European country. Still, he says, what’s happening in the country “feels like Russian handiwork.”
“Maybe my dream will come true when this [kind of] Russian politics is over — when it all burns down,” he says. “I think only the Russian people themselves can make that happen. In a way, this painting was for them, too.”
Maybe that upset some people, but there’s a lot of suffering around them because of their government’s actions. I can’t believe people are okay with that. Someday, these terrible repressions will end and Russia will become a kinder country. I have my doubts, of course. But I still hold on to hope — and to the dream that we, too, will pull ourselves out of the swamp that Russia keeps trying to drag us into.
