Vladimir Putin has found creative ways to get around Western trade restrictions on everything from luxury cars to toys. Now, Russia is addressing a different kind of boycott: western pop. A Russian company has launched package holidays to see acts such as Taylor Swift and Coldplay elsewhere in Europe after performers stopped touring the country in response to the war in Ukraine. Tour operator Russia Express’s current packages include trips to see Ed Sheeran and Deep Purple in Serbia, James Blunt in the United Arab Emirates and the Italian tenor Andrea Bocelli in Turkey. Russians desperate to see Ed Sheeran perform can pay the equivalent of £900 for a five-day all-inclusive trip to his concert in Belgrade this August. A spokesman for Russia Express said that it had sold 150 package holidays for concerts since it launched sales last autumn and said these musical tours have proved “consistently popular”. Moscow was once a key stop on most major artists’ European and world tours. However, performers have been boycotting Russia since its invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, amid heavy Western sanctions. Jonny Tickle, a British man living in Moscow, said: “Some companies were doing [pop star package holidays] before 2022,...