Invaders remove almost 360,000 archival documents from Kherson – intelligence

After the liberation of Kherson, it was established that the Russian occupiers illegally removed almost 360,000 documents of the National Archival Fund of Ukraine (NAF), reports the Main Intelligence Agency of the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine.

As reported by the Agency, since 2014, more than 5 million documents of the National Archival Fund of Ukraine (NAF), which constitute an integral part of the national and world cultural heritage, have been under Russian occupation. A significant part of these archives was illegally removed from the temporarily occupied territories of Ukraine - in particular, Crimea, parts of Donetsk and Luhansk regions, as well as Kherson region.

In particular, after the liberation of Kherson, it was established that the Russian occupiers illegally exported almost 360,000 NAF documents.

The intelligence emphasized that these actions are a gross violation of the norms of international humanitarian law, in particular the Hague Convention for the Protection of Cultural Property in the Event of Armed Conflict of May 14, 1954.

The Main Intelligence Agency of Ukraine and the State Archival Service of Ukraine in the Stolen Heritage section of the War&Sanctions portal have published the names of individuals and organizations involved in the illegal export of Ukrainian archival materials from the temporarily occupied territories and their further integration into the Russian archival infrastructure.

Among them: Andrey Artizov - head of the Russian State Archives; Oleg Lobov - head of the so-called "State Archival Service of the Republic of Crimea"; Irina Krasnonos - director of the so-called "Sevastopol City Archives"; Vitaly Semyonov - founder and head of the public organization "Archive Watch"; As well as employees of the so-called "State Archives of the Republic of Crimea," who in 2022 directly participated in the illegal export of state archival funds of Kherson region.