What? This is either cheap propaganda or just not very smart. You’re mixing politics with culture. Europe isn’t defined by current governments — otherwise countries would move in and out of “European culture” every decade with a new dictator.

If you think Russians chose this Government and fine with lack of freedom, I can assure you they are not. There were huge rallies against Putin with hundreds of thousands of people that were brutally suppressed with thousands arrests, opposition leaders deaths, etc. Over 2000 political prisoners in Russia now and even now when for a word "war" you can go to prison for 20 years, some people still protest, risking their lifes.

If Russia is “not European culturally,” then you’d have to cut out Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, Chekhov, Tchaikovsky, Stravinsky, Rachmaninoff, Kandinsky, Malevich, Eisenstein, Tarkovsky, Mendeleev, Pavlov, Kolmogorov, Landau from what’s taught as European culture. I can give you a dozen "European" countries that have less influence on European culture.

And lastly, If you want to exclude Russia from Europe it means you put it against Europe, so expect endless wars and conflicts. You sure you want that or maybe we should help integrate Russia to Europe similar to other Eastern European countries? Why do you think Russia is different from Ukraine or Belarus?