For Ukraine, For Their Freedom and Ours!, a French nonprofit, has filed a case with the Worldwide Legal Court docket (ICC), accusing Russia of the “systematic, widespread, and arranged” looting of Ukrainian cultural heritage.
The group, which describes itself as “dedicated to supporting the Ukrainian trigger within the face of Russia’s conflict of aggression,” submitted the grievance on July 11. It requires arrest warrants to be issued for Russian president Vladimir Putin and eight high-ranking Russian officers, claiming that mass plundering because the begin of the 2022 invasion was “deliberate on the highest stage of the Russian state.”
“After a prolonged investigation, we had been capable of decide the modus operandi of this predation … and determine the principle perpetrators of acts aimed toward appropriating Ukrainian cultural heritage,” the group mentioned in an announcement. “These acts might be categorized as conflict crimes below worldwide regulation. Led by Vladimir Putin, the implementation of this coverage of systematic plunder entails senior officers from the Russian Ministry of Tradition, administrators of main museums, and even Sergei Naryshkin, the pinnacle of Russian international intelligence.”
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In June, UNESCO verified damage to 501 cultural websites in Ukraine attributable to Russian forces since February 2022. These embrace 151 spiritual websites, 262 buildings of historic and/or creative curiosity, 34 museums, 33 monuments, 18 libraries, one archive, and two archaeological websites.
For Ukraine, For Their Freedom and Ours! mentioned that Russia’s invasion has “resulted within the largest plundering of cultural heritage in Europe throughout worldwide armed battle because the Second World Struggle.”
“Our legal professionals are assured in how the prosecutor’s workplace will deal with the knowledge” submitted to the ICC, Christian Castagna, the nonprofit’s advocacy supervisor, instructed ARTnews.
In 2023, the ICC issued two arrest warrants for Putin over the unlawful wartime deportation of Ukrainian kids to Russia, following a marketing campaign by For Ukraine, For Their Freedom and Ours!. Ukraine’s human rights commissioner mentioned the warrants helped to return practically 400 of the 19,546 kids reported as kidnapped.
“In my view, after the 2 arrest warrants had been issued by the ICC for Putin, it has develop into simpler to return kids,” Dmytro Lubinets, the commissioner, instructed reporters on the time. Nonetheless, he added that deportations had been nonetheless ongoing.
Russia, in the meantime, has argued that it’s relocating Ukrainian kids to guard them from being deserted in a battle zone.
“The content material of the communication we submitted to the ICC on July 11 could be very exact and well-argued concerning how Moscow ready the looting of museums and the erasure of Ukrainian cultural identification,” Castagna mentioned Monday. “Our work, in its spirit and conduct, is similar to that which we carried out concerning the compelled abductions of Ukrainian kids.”
Earlier this 12 months, in Might, Castagna and a bunch of arts professionals known as on the Worldwide Council of Museums (ICOM)—a nongovernmental group that units business requirements—to eject Russia for violating its code of ethics.
In an open letter published in Le Monde, the group mentioned it might take ICOM to courtroom in France, the place the NGO is headquartered, if it did not take away Russia.
“As a result of ICOM is an NGO topic to French laws,” Castagna instructed ARTnews on the time, “if it doesn’t comply with what’s written in its statutes, its members can demand that ICOM’s govt board respects its statutes and dismisses Russia for violating its code of ethics.”
On Monday, he added, “Because the publication of the [the open letter in Le Monde], now we have seen the reluctance of many professionals to face as much as Russians who don’t respect ICOM’s working guidelines. They don’t wish to combine political wrestle with cultural actions. However the erasure of Ukrainian cultural identification is certainly a neo-colonialist political undertaking.”
“It’s now a matter of fueling the talk in such a manner that artwork professionals take inventory of the crimes dedicated by Russia,” Castagna mentioned.
