Artnews has reported on how UNESCO is pursuing new strategies to stop looted art from crossing the besieged Ukraine’s borders.
image: UNESCO website
… Ukraine has accused Russia of violating the 1954 Hague Convention…
Artnews writes:
….The United Nations’s cultural body has partnered with Poland’s Culture Ministry to train law enforcement in countries bordering Ukraine on its west side in how to identify and recover art stolen from Ukraine by Russia. Authorities in Poland, Hungary, Slovakia, Romania, and Moldova, as well as representatives from Ukraine, are undergoing three days of workshops in the Polish capital of Warsaw this week, per the Associated Press.
To date, at least 230 cultural sites across Ukraine have been damaged or destroyed, and more than 15,000 pieces of Ukrainian fine art and artifacts have been stolen. Reports have surfaced of the systematic plunder of Ukrainian museums by Russian forces; Ukrainian politicians have called these incidents an attack on their national identity…
Ukraine has accused Russia of violating the 1954 Hague Convention for the Protection of Cultural Property in the Event of Armed Conflict, which was established after World War II and prohibits signatories from ‘any form of theft’ of cultural property. Russia and Ukraine both signed the treaty.
