The Russian occupiers looted the Kherson Art Museum

Russian soldiers looted the Kherson Art Museum. The occupiers took things out of the museum for four days, including a collection of works of art of the 17th-20th centuries.

This was reported on the Museum’s Facebook page.

“The Kherson Art Museum has been looted by the Russian occupiers. They call it ‘evacuation’, we call it looting under the slogans of ‘preservation of cultural values,'” they wrote in the post.

As the museum said, the exhibits were taken out accompanied by armed men in civilian clothes. Valuable exhibits were moved by trucks and in a school bus.

“From October 31 to November 3, the occupying “authorities” brought three to four dozen people to the museum, who took out works of art and office equipment – everything they saw, everything their raking hands could reach. There is no mention of a delicate attitude towards ancient rarities – the paintings were not packed in a special way for transportation, but wrapped in some kind of rag,” the publication emphasized.

The cargo was directed to Crimea, but it is not a fact that it is the last destination.

The museum claims that the occupiers were helped by the “director” of the museum appointed by the occupiers.

“The so-called “evacuation” was led by the pseudo-director Natalya Desyatova, whom Kherson residents may know as a singer from the Teatralne cafe (this is about the level of expertise). Unfortunately, she was also helped by some museum employees who agreed to work for the Russians. According to the current director of the museum Alina Dotsenko, in Crimea, the collection of the Kherson Art Museum is “accepted” by her former subordinates – Natalya Koltsova and Inna Burenko, who “evacuated” ahead of time.

The police of the Kherson region opened a criminal investigation into the fact of the robbery of the Kherson art museum by the Russian military. This is stated in the statement of the Kherson region police. “The police have opened a criminal investigation into the fact of the Russian military abducting and transporting art treasures from the Kherson Art Museum to the territory of the aggressor country,” the post said. In total, during the full-scale invasion of Russia into Ukraine, the police opened 54 criminal proceedings regarding war crimes committed by the Russian military in the Kherson region.

What was in the museum

The collection of the Oleksiy Shovkunenko Kherson Art Museum includes more than 13,000 works of art. And the building itself is located in the premises of the former town hall and the City Duma.

Artistic works of Ukrainian and foreign authors are stored there: paintings, graphics, icons, tapestries, household items and works of folk art.

In particular, among the exhibits of the Shovkunenko Museum were the works of Ivan Aivazovsky, Oleksiy Shovkunenko, Mykola Pymonenko, August von Bayer and the icon “Yuriy the Snake Wrestler with the Holy Apostles Peter and Paul”, “The Virgin Calm My Sorrows” and others.

The Russians tortured and killed everyone they thought was involved in supporting the Armed Forces The Western mass media published yet another evidence of Russian atrocities in the first month of the war in the occupied territories of the Kyiv region. According to the Associated Press, in a joint study with PBS Research, journalists studied hundreds of hours of street camera footage and wiretaps that helped them reconstruct the Russian operation to “cleanse” Buchi.

The investigation claims that the Russian occupiers purposefully filtered civilians in the city and went from house to house in search of suspicious civilians, information about which was gathered in advance by the special services.

After that, everyone whom the Russians suspected of aiding the Ukrainian army was tortured and killed.

“This was an organized brutality that will be repeated in all the rest of the territories occupied by Russia in Ukraine. This is a strategy of neutralizing resistance and intimidating the local population, which Russian troops often used in past conflicts, especially in Chechnya,” the article says.

In particular, Yablonska Street, where the headquarters of the occupiers was located, was the most affected. After the deoccupation, the bodies of 40 local residents were found there. According to the General Prosecutor’s Office of Ukraine, soldiers from the 76th Guards Airborne Assault Division were involved in the shootings.

In phone conversations with relatives, Russian soldiers admit that they killed many civilians.

For example, Russian soldier Maxim called his wife on March 21 from the suburbs of Kyiv. He tells her that it is difficult to be there, and that is why everyone around is abusing alcohol.

“How do you protect yourself if you’re drunk?” — The wife is interested. “Quite normal. It’s easier to shoot civilians,” he replies.

“Do you know how many civilians I have killed here? Hide the weapon from me. I think my roof has already caved in. I have already killed so many civilians,” he told his wife.

Another Russian soldier named Ivan told his mother on March 17-18 that the Russian soldiers were shooting “everyone” in Buch, whether it was children, women or the elderly. “We kill everyone who has a weapon. Absolutely everyone,” he said.

We will remind you that the day before, New York Times journalists published their investigation about the events in Buch, in particular, they revealed the story of one mass shooting in which eight peaceful Ukrainians died at once.

In the liberated by the Armed Forces of Ukraine, the Berislav district of the Kherson region, the bodies of three executed civilians were found.

According to the office of the Prosecutor General of Ukraine, bodies with traces of violent death were found on November 4 in the urban-type settlement of Vysokopolye. According to preliminary data, during the occupation of the settlement by the Russian military, three civilians were shot; the Russians buried the bodies of those killed near private houses.

The bodies have been sent for a forensic medical examination. Investigations are underway to establish the circumstances of the crime.

The city chairman of Melitopol, Ivan Fedorov, said that the occupying “authorities” were totally “dividing” the city. Gauleiter of the occupied part of the Zaporozhye region Yevgeny Balitsky and the Russian invaders formed a “commission” that compiles a register of state, municipal, private enterprises, houses, apartments and cars. Property without “registration” of the occupiers is declared “ownerless” and quickly “nationalized”.

This is reported by the chairman Ivan Fedorov.

“The occupiers of Melitopol resorted to a total redistribution of the annexed city. The local gauleiter Balitsky and guest performers from the Kremlin created a commission that conducts a census of state, municipal, private enterprises, houses, apartments and cars of residents,” the message says.

Fedorov clarified that objects whose owners left the occupation or refused to “register” under the fake laws of the Russian occupiers are recognized by the “authorities” as “mismanaged” and quickly carry out the so-called “nationalization”.

Then, the stolen property is sold to “oligarchs” from occupation of the regions of Donetsk and Lugansk regions (ORDLR), occupied Crimea, Russia. “From the latter, 47 city healthcare facilities are under the gun of the dirty hands of the Gauleiter,” Fedorov wrote. In his opinion, “one thing pleases: Balitsky and Co. understand that they are doomed to leave Melitopol,” which is why they set off to rob “everything from hospitals to gas stations.” In the occupied Energodar, Zaporozhye region, Russian invaders are massively robbing apartments, garage cooperatives, dachas, businesses and churches. Looters take out everything that comes to hand: dishes, household appliances, furniture, plumbing, clothes. The loot is taken out by Urals.

It was also reported that Berislav and nearby settlements of the Kherson region were looted. Russian marauders also take out the property of electric grid service enterprises and repair facilities.

Gauleiter of the temporarily occupied part of the Zaporizhzhia region Yevgeny Balytsky, the Russian military created a commission that conducts a census of state, communal, private enterprises, houses, apartments and cars.

This was stated by the chairman of Melitopol, Ivan Fedorov, during his speech on the air of the national telethon.

“Objects whose owners left the occupation or refused to register under the fake laws of the local tsars are recognized as “derelict”. The occupiers quickly “nationalize” such property. From the latter, 47 city health care facilities are under the crosshairs of the Gauleiter’s dirty hands,” Fedorov noted.