State of the Union: The West could have courted sympathetic and apolitical Russians; instead we demonize them for their ethnicity.

It took less than three weeks for Serbian actor Milos Bikovic to lose his job on the HBO series The White Lotus. Bikovic had been cast for a role in its third season, but the Ukrainian Ministry of Foreign Affairs went after the Serbian actor for his ties to Russia and the company caved to their pressure.

The Ministry tweeted: “@HBO, is it all right for you to work with a person who supports genocide & violates international law?” According to Bikovic, they also conducted a “targeted campaign” urging HBO to fire him.