Russia exports almost 360 thousand archival documents from Kherson

The State Archives of Kherson region. Photo: MOST

After the liberation of Kherson from occupation, it turned out that the Russians had taken almost 360,000 documents from the National Archival Fond from the city.

The Defence Intelligence of Ukraine notes that more than 5 million documents of the archival collection are under Russian occupation. Some of them were taken from the temporarily occupied territories, in particular from the Autonomous Republic of Crimea, certain districts of Donetsk and Luhansk regions, as well as from Kherson region.

After the de-occupation of Kherson on 11 November 2022, Ukrainian services recorded the fact of massive export of documents that were subsequently integrated into the Russian archival system.

«These actions constitute a gross violation of international humanitarian law, in particular the Hague Convention for the Protection of Cultural Property in the Event of Armed Conflict of 14 May 1954», the statement said.

Together with the State Archival Service of Ukraine, the MDI published the names of the individuals and organisations involved in the organisation of the illegal export of documents:

• Andrei Artizov — Head of the Federal Archival Agency of the Russian Federation;
  
  
• Oleg Lobov — head of the so-called State Archival Service of the Republic of Crimea;
  
  
• Irina Krasnonos — director of the so-called Sevastopol City Archive;
  
  
• Vitalii Semenov — head of the NGO «Archival Watch»;
  
  
• employees of the State Archives of the Republic of Crimea, who in 2022 were directly involved in the removal of the Kherson region's archival funds.

To recap, Kherson museum workers identified another painting stolen by Russians.