It was only a matter time before Ye, the American rapper formerly and better known as Kanye West, entered his East era. He’s been flirting with Russia for some years, even popping over to Moscow for a fashion designer’s birthday celebrations in 2024. Now, with the news that he will play two shows at the Gazprom Arena in St Petersburg in October, it seems the controversial star has secured something of a breakthrough in his beautiful friendship with the country. What could possibly go wrong?Not the sales strategy. Tickets for the two dates at the 70,000-capacity venue, priced from 9,000 to 160,000 roubles – about €90 to €1,600 – were gone within hours of the announcement. Vladimir Putin might hate the West, but young Russians love West, a man who previously described himself on a podcast as a “young Putin”, in what was only his second-most-problematic reference to a head of state to date.This story has “more to follow” written all over it, but as it stands the one certainty is that West won’t be treating the St Petersburg crowd to Heil Hitler, a song he released in May 2025. Putin might not take that one especially well.The song, to be clear, didn’t make the set list for his current tour, as West is officially done with all that Nazi-praising business. In January of this year he took out a full-page advertisement in the Wall Street Journal in which he said he aspired to earn forgiveness for his string of anti-Semitic remarks and actions, which included denying the Holocaust, selling swastika T-shirts, claiming he “could see good things” in Adolf Hitler and suggesting people should “stop dissing the Nazis all the time”. (He attributed his behaviour to a head injury in a 2002 car crash and his diagnosis of type 1 bipolar disorder.)[ Kanye West has taken vice-signalling to a new level of brutishness. Can he come back?Opens in new window ]So it’s just a coincidence that West, like Nazi troops before him, believes there’s something to be gained from heading in the direction of St Petersburg. Whether he makes it there might yet depend on the extent to which he is willing to express support for Russia and the small matter of its “special military operation”. For although West is not the first western act to perform in Russia since its invasion of Ukraine – Jason Derulo, DaBaby, Tyga and Akon have all gone there – he is the highest profile, and there is talk of an opportunity for a cosy photograph of “young Putin” with actual Putin. It’s more likely to happen, in any case, than the wish of one ultraconservative Russian politician, Vitaly Milonov, who intervened this week to say West should ditch his usual numbers for a night of traditional Russian songs.The rapper’s eastward venture could be taken as evidence that the West’s cultural boycott of Russia is unwinding, but equally this could be just a Kanye West thing. His return to touring in 2026 has had a mixed reception, which is to say some European countries have not received him at all. Dates in Spain, Portugal, the Netherlands, Turkey and Albania did go ahead, with his travelling fan base flocking to see him – for many younger listeners, West is like a living Michael Jackson, in the sense that he is not remotely cancellable. Concerts due to take place in the UK, France, Poland, Italy and the Czech Republic were all called off, however, with various authorities concluding that West was about as welcome round their way as a member of the sanctioned Russian elite.[ The British government has no business in banning Kanye West from the countryOpens in new window ]The gigs were scrapped partly because the capacity for deep offence remained and partly because a perceived threat to public safety arose from the risk that the concerts might become a magnet for those neo-Nazi sympathisers who don’t happen to subscribe to the Wall Street Journal. So here we are. Operation Rehabilitation has been suspended. A man who toyed with buying Parler, a self-styled “free speech” app, as recently as 2022 is apparently keen to collect a pay cheque from Putin’s Russia, where banging on about free speech tends not to end well.It helps to remember, of course, that just as musicians cannot be counted on to adhere to any consistent moral framework, it’s inadvisable to try to make sense of geopolitics through the prism of the live-entertainment industry.West’s foray east has yet to trigger much consternation, perhaps because no one expects anything better from him, or perhaps because everyone can see it for what it is: a profitable mistake. This is not an oxymoron. When the UK Home Office blocked his entry in April, forcing the cancellation of the three-day Wireless festival in London, it said his presence would not be “conducive to the public good”. These Russian concerts are different: they’re not conducive to West’s good. The “poor judgment and reckless behaviour” he has admitted to in the past does not appear to be over yet.