Russian occupants in Mariupol, Donetsk region, have resorted to a scheme to export museum exhibits and artifacts from the temporarily occupied territory of Ukraine. Currently, stone statues allegedly found by the Russian military are under threat of loss. This was reported by the Center for National Resistance, UNN reports .
One such example occurred in the Donetsk region. Here, Russian Guard militants handed over to the Mariupol Museum of Local Lore stone figures allegedly found during “work” belonging to the Polovtsian culture of the XI-XII centuries. The museum's “specialists” have already evaluated the found tombstones and promise to decide their fate in the near future,
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It is known that since the Mariupol Museum of Local Lore fell into the hands of Russian collaborators, it has become a kind of conduit through which stolen cultural property belonging to Ukraine is “legalized” and entered into the Russian register. Subsequently, such exhibits end up in storage and museum halls in Russia.
It is noted that at the beginning of Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine, one of the first victims of Russian shelling was the Mariupol Museum of Local Lore. The museum building was completely destroyed after a shell hit, resulting in a large-scale fire. However, the main reason for the loss of a significant portion of historical property was not so much the consequences of the fire as the systematic destruction of exhibits by looters and the Russian military.
From the first days of the occupation, the Russians began to take the most valuable artifacts from the museum to occupied Donetsk. Among the stolen items were unique objects of historical and cultural significance that symbolized the heritage of Mariupol and the entire region. Part of the collection, including paintings by the famous artist Arkhip Kuindzhi, was handed over to the occupiers by the then director of the museum, Natalia Kapusnikova. After that, she fled Mariupol to Russia, effectively betraying her city and Ukraine's cultural heritage,
Recall
In March of this year, Russian troops destroyed the ancient Did mound in Mariupol, a historical monument dating back to the 5th millennium BC, in violation of laws protecting cultural property during war.