Intelligence: Over 170 Ukrainian Artifacts Stolen by Russia
The Main Intelligence Directorate (HUR) of the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine has published a list of more than 170 Ukrainian cultural treasures stolen by Russian occupiers.
The Gaze reports on it, referring to the HUR on Facebook.
According to the HUR report, the section “Stolen Heritage” contains data on 178 artifacts illegally removed from the temporarily occupied territories of Ukraine.
A significant part of the stolen items comes from Crimea, where the Russians conducted illegal archaeological excavations at sites in the southern suburbs of Chersonesos Taurica, the Kadykivsky settlement, and the Byzantine architectural monument “Church of John the Baptist.”
The case of the National Historical and Archaeological Museum “Kam'yana Mohyla,” from which the occupiers took 37 exhibits to the “Chersonesos Taurica” museum in 2023, under the guise of a “temporary exhibition” entitled “The Spiritual World of Ancestors in the Petroglyphs of Kam'yana Mohyla.”
“By appropriating Ukrainian culture and history, Russia is trying to erase Ukrainian national identity and legalize aggression and occupation,” the НUR emphasizes.
The importance of documenting crimes to establish justice is also emphasized.
“Documenting crimes is the first step towards establishing justice and bringing all those involved to justice,” the statement concludes.
As The Gaze informed earlier, an investigation by Ukrainian outlet Texty.org.ua has uncovered that Russia’s two leading state museums hold more than 110,000 cultural artifacts removed from Ukrainian territory.