12-07-2025
The ICC petitions to end Russia's plundering of Ukrainian museums
The Office of the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC) received a formal complaint on Friday, July 11, from the advocacy group For Ukraine, for Their Freedom and Ours!. The association called on the court to issue arrest warrants as soon as possible for Russian President Vladimir Putin and eight other top Russian officials, to put a stop to the plundering of Ukrainian museums – acts that international conventions recognize as war crimes.
"Russia's aggression against Ukraine has resulted in the largest spoliation of cultural heritage in Europe during an international armed conflict since World War II," the group wrote in its complaint. "Since 2014, Russia's invasion of Ukraine has been accompanied by a cultural war aimed at eradicating Ukrainian identity." The association asserted: "This spoliation is systematic, widespread and organized," and "planned at the highest levels of the Russian state."
The Russian federal law of March 18, 2023, allowed for the "incorporation of collections from 77 Ukrainian museums into the catalogue of Russian museums" in the Moscow-controlled regions of Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia, Kherson and in Crimea, annexed in 2014. According to Ukraine's Ministry of Culture, as of July 2024, fewer than 1.2 million museum pieces remained in Crimea, compared with 12 million before the invasion.
