Alina Dotsenko returned to her museum after Ukrainian forces retook Kherson in late 2022 and found thousands of artworks had vanished. Before Russia's full-scale invasion in early 2022, the Kherson Art Museum held more than 14,000 works in a collection ranging from America to Japan. As the Russians retreated from Kherson, they loaded much of the museum's collection onto trucks and took it to Russian-annexed Crimea. The fate of nearly 10,000 pieces from the Kherson Art Museum remains unknown.
The Kherson case stands out because Ukraine knows exactly what was lost, as Dotsenko had photographed every item before the war and created a digital archive. Dotsenko hid the hard drives containing the digital archive during the Russian occupation and retrieved them after Ukrainian troops returned. The digital archive forms the most detailed record of looted cultural property during the war, allowing prosecutors to work with Interpol to trace missing works and pursue those responsible.
Across much of Ukraine, such documentation does not exist, and cultural losses can only be pursued in court if they can be proved item by item. Halyna Chumak, former director of the Donetsk Regional Art Museum, fled Russian-controlled Donetsk in 2014, carrying catalogs documenting a fraction of the museum's roughly 15,000 artworks. Chumak spent a year transporting the catalogs through checkpoints into Ukrainian-controlled territory, leaving most behind to avoid attention from pro-Russian forces who searched her at each crossing. Those catalogs covering just over 1,000 items are the only surviving evidence from the Donetsk Regional Art Museum.
More than a decade later, Ukrainian entrepreneur Oleksandr Velychko is digitizing the catalogs, with his team taking over three painstaking months to process about 400 works. Once completed, the database from the Donetsk catalogs will be given to Ukrainian authorities.
Russian forces looted nearly 33,000 items from the Kherson Local History Museum and Kherson Museum of Local Lore in fall 2022, the largest such theft in Europe since World War II. Employees from museums in occupied Crimea, on instructions from the Russian leadership, removed Scythian and Sarmatian gold jewelry, weapons, coins, and other artifacts from Kherson museums. The Kherson Local History Museum had accumulated over 180,000 artifacts before the looting, including items from Scythians, Sarmatians, Goths, Greeks, and Romans. Russian forces have stolen tens of thousands of art pieces from Ukraine, ranging from modern art to ancient Scythian gold.
In Mariupol, Russians stole over 2,000 works of art from the city's three main museums after occupying the city in May 2022. In the Kherson region, Russians stole around 10,000 art pieces from the city's museums out of a collection of 13,000, with other sources putting the number at 15,000. In occupied Melitopol, Russian troops stole a 4th-century golden Scythian helmet worth millions of dollars and abducted the local museum director. The looting has been organized, with Russian art experts participating and directing soldiers on which pieces to steal.
The Russian Culture Ministry did not respond to an Associated Press request for comment on the alleged removal of items from Ukrainian museums. In the past, Russian-appointed officials in occupied territories described the removal of cultural items as protective measures.
The Venice Biennale must not become a stage for whitewashing the war crimes that Russia commits daily against the Ukrainian people and our cultural heritage.
Ukraine is raising its voice over the looting as Russia seeks to return to the world's cultural stage, with the Venice Biennale planning to allow Russian representatives to take part for the first time since 2022.
In February 2026, Interpol published an online database detailing artifacts stolen from Ukrainian museums, compiled by the National Police of Ukraine.
The cultural looting occurs against the backdrop of a devastating war. In December 2024, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said 43,000 Ukrainian soldiers had been killed and 370,000 injured, with 198,000 Russian soldiers killed and 550,000 injured. A June 2025 CSIS analysis estimated Russian military casualties would reach one million in summer 2025 and Ukrainian casualties at 400,000, including 60,000–100,000 killed. A January 2026 UN report stated nearly 15,000 civilians had been killed and over 40,600 injured since February 2022, verified by UN personnel. Some 55,000 Ukrainian soldiers have been killed, according to President Zelensky, while the BBC has confirmed almost 160,000 names of people killed fighting on Russia's side. Analysts at ISW say Russia took about 4,700 sq km of territory in 2025, while Russia claims to have taken 6,000 sq km.
Geopolitical developments continue to shape the conflict. North Korea and Russia signed an agreement on October 30, 2024, to cooperate in digital communications, likely to enhance Russia's domestic repression tools. The South Korean government intends to send personnel to Ukraine to monitor North Korean troops and the battlefield situation.
Military and diplomatic shifts have also influenced the war's trajectory. Elon Musk's decision to deny Russian forces access to Starlink in February 2025 gave Ukraine an advantage, forcing Russian retreats in some areas. A US-backed peace plan in November 2025 suggested Ukraine cede control of Luhansk, Donetsk, Crimea, and occupied parts of Zaporizhzhia and Kherson to Moscow.
International support for Ukraine remains robust. The UK announced an additional £2.26bn in loans to Ukraine, using profits from frozen Russian assets, on top of £3bn annual military support.
Domestically, Russian museums are collecting personal items from deceased soldiers. Russian museums, such as the Kuzebay Gerd National Museum of Udmurtia, are collecting personal belongings of deceased Russian soldiers for exhibitions. Museums acquire these items by contacting military draft boards or relatives, with some items becoming state property once in the museum.
The legal challenges in recovering stolen artifacts are immense, given the scale of looting and varying levels of documentation. Key unknowns persist, including the specific locations of the nearly 10,000 missing pieces from the Kherson Art Museum and the current status and location of the abducted museum director from Melitopol. The effectiveness of the Interpol database in recovering stolen artifacts as of February 2026 also remains unclear, alongside the total number of cultural artifacts stolen since the full-scale invasion began and the progress of specific legal actions against those responsible.