Ukraine's Defence Intelligence exposes Russians who took almost 360,000 archive documents from Kherson

After the liberation of Kherson from Russian occupation, Ukraine’s special services discovered that the Russians had illegally exported almost 360,000 documents from the National Archival Fund.

Source: Defence Intelligence of Ukraine (DIU)

Details: "These actions constitute a gross violation of international humanitarian law, particularly the Hague Convention for the Protection of Cultural Property in the Event of Armed Conflict of 14 May 1954," the DIU said.

Employees of DIU and the State Archival Service of Ukraine have added the names of individuals and organisations "involved in the illegal export of Ukrainian archive materials from the temporarily occupied territories and their subsequent integration into the Russian archive infrastructure" to the official register in the Stolen Heritage section of the War & Sanctions portal.

These individuals include:

• Andrei Artizov, Head of the Russian State Archive;
• Oleg Lobov, Head of the so-called "State Archive Service of the Republic of Crimea";
• Irina Krasnonos, Director of the so-called "Sevastopol City Archive";
• Vitaly Semionoff, founder and head of the NGO Archive Watch;
• and employees of the so-called "State Archive of the Republic of Crimea" who in 2022 were directly involved in the illegal export of state archives of Kherson Oblast.

The full list of Russian thieves is available on the War & Sanctions website.

DIU reports that since 2014, more than five million documents of the National Archival Fund of Ukraine (NAF), which are an integral part of the national and world cultural heritage, have been under Russian occupation. A significant part of these archives have been illegally removed from the temporarily occupied territories of Ukraine, including Crimea, parts of Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts, and Kherson Oblast.

Problems affecting the preservation of Ukrainian collections and museums

There is nowhere to evacuate items of cultural heritage belonging to the State Museum Fund. Deputy Culture Minister Halyna Hryhorenko drew attention to this on 11 April at a briefing at the Ministry of Culture and Strategic Communications.

The displaced cultural property requires extensive storage space – 19,000 cubic metres – and the ministry has only a 500-cubic-metre room at its disposal.

Hryhorenko also noted that there are six million movable cultural heritage items in the frontline areas.

The ministry is negotiating with the State Property Fund to secure the necessary premises. It is also negotiating with regional administrations regarding the allocation of salaries for the people who will service the premises.

The Culture Ministry is convinced that museum workers and government officials are afraid to conduct evacuations in order not to "spread panic" among the population.

The Culture Ministry organised this briefing shortly after an op-ed by Olha Sahaidak, Head of the Coalition of Cultural Figures, was published in Ukrainska Pravda. Sahaidak stated that the Culture Ministry believes it is not responsible for evacuating museum property from frontline areas. The ministry provided this response to a request from the Coalition of Cultural Figures.

A letter signed by Deputy Minister Serhii Beliaev states: "Those responsible for preserving and evacuating cultural property are the oblast and Kyiv city military administrations, local governments, and the heads of companies, institutions and organisations. The evacuation is carried out in coordination with the Ministry of Culture." This letter is at the disposal of UP.Kultura.

The ministry also said in the letter that it does not draw up lists of items to be evacuated. This, they say, should be done by the museums where the collections are kept.

Support Ukrainska Pravda on Patreon!