Looting of Kherson by Russian Troops Results in Cultural Losses

The Oleksiy Shovkunenko Art Museum in Kherson, Ukraine, a site from which Russian troops have been “evacuating” truckloads of art in the past few days. Photo: The Odessa Journal

Russian troops are actively looting Kherson, in the south of Ukraine, amidst continued fighting over the city The action has already resulted not only in the loss of ambulances, tractors, and private vehicles but also of vital archives, artworks, and even the bones of Catherine the Great’s lover,the last and longest-ruling Empress of Imperial Russia. 

As a foreboding signal of a series of battles anticipated in Kherson in the coming weeks, the city stands mostly empty– due to Russia’s forced deportation of local citizens and the aforementioned displacement of transportation equipment and cultural objects. The four-day (and counting) looting was  carried out by Russian soldiers dressed in civilian clothing who, according to the administrators of one of the museums broken into in Kherson, took “everything they saw, everything their raking hands could reach.” The Oleksiy Shovkunenko Kherson Art Museum further stated in a Facebook post that the artwork cargo was taken to Crimea, but that they aren’t certain this is the final destination. 

On Oct. 20, after declaring martial law in the regions of Kherson, Zaporizhzhia, Donetsk, and Luhansk, President Vladimir Putin endorsed looting by his troops in the name of “preservation.” Yet removal of valuable artifacts from Kherson and other cities’ cultural institutions already became widespread back in May, “when the Russian army faced a possible Ukrainian counterattack.” Besides taking artworks, Russian troops have had a chance to remove many Soviet-era monuments as well as Prince Grigory Potemkin’s mummified remains (taken to an unknown location). The latter point is particularly notable, as it was Potemkin who persuaded Catherine the Great to annex Crimea in 1783 and sought the creation of a “New Russia” through drastic territorial expansion. Thus, the Prince plays a major role in the “version of history the Kremlin uses [in present times] to justify the war” and bolster Russian citizens’ enthusiasm for “conquest.”

The tomb of Catherine the Great’s lover in Kherson’s St. Catherine Cathedral, from under which his remains were seized by Russians among other valuable cultural relics. Photo: Wikimedia Commons/Alexey M 

Russia’s actions in this case are in explicit violation of the 1954 Hague Convention for the Protection of Cultural Property in the Event of Armed Conflict, adopted under the auspices of UNESCO– a fact that the Ukrainian Ministry of Culture was eager to point out, calling the looting a war crime. In an Oct. 15 statement, the ministry further stated that the “mass removal of cultural values ​​from the territory of Ukraine by the Russian occupiers will be comparable to the looting of museums during World War II and should be qualified accordingly.” They publicly asked UNESCO for its help in stopping Russia’s destruction to Ukrainian cultural property. This organization has been assessing damage to Ukrainian cultural assets since February, using methods such as satellite imagery.

Regarding the Ministry of Culture’s reference to German looting during the Second World War, there are indeed parallels to the situation in Ukraine– in that Hitler, like Putin, mandated the seizure of other nations’ cultural property for “the greater good of the state” or for vague “protection purposes.” Hitler’s real goals were personally motivated: to enrich the Third Reich, obliterate any art (termed “degenerate”) that was at odds with Nazi values, and eventually establish his own Führermuseum as the cultural center of the world. As a result of these actions, over 20 percent of European art was looted by the war's end– with over 30,000 pieces of art missing to this day. In 1945, key leaders of Nazi Germany were brought to trial in Nuremberg, for offenses not the least of which was this large-scale looting– considered a war crime. 

Although Russian soldiers’ modern-day looting of Kherson is an ongoing “operation,” its long-term effects are unclear as of yet– though the damage done so far is significant.