Former Mariupol Museum Director Faces Charges Over Stolen Paintings Handed to Russia

The former director of the Mariupol Local History Museum has been served with an in-absentia notice of suspicion for personally handing five original paintings to Russian occupation authorities.

According to the Donetsk Regional Prosecutor’s Office, the investigation found that at the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the suspect used her access to the museum’s storage to illegally remove five paintings from the Arkhip Kuindzhi Art Museum, a branch of the Local History Museum.

“First, she moved them to her own home, and later, following agreements with representatives of the occupation administration, she personally handed them over to the invaders,” the prosecutor’s office said.

The stolen paintings include Ivan Aivazovsky’s “Off the Coast of the Caucasus,” Arkhip Kuindzhi’s “Red Sunset,” “Autumn. Crimea,” and “Elbrus,” as well as Grigory Kalmykov’s “Kundzhi Feeding Pigeons.” 

“In this way, the suspect facilitated the enemy’s misappropriation of unique works of art that were an integral part of Mariupol’s cultural heritage,” the prosecutor’s office said.

Art expertise valued the five original canvases at HR.26,362,500 (about $587,679).

Reportedly, the paintings were subsequently transported to the so-called “Donetsk Republican Museum” in Russian-occupied Donetsk and illegally entered the Russian register of museum values, administered by Russia’s Ministry of Culture.

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The former director faces charges of violating the laws and customs of war under Part 1 of Article 438 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine, carrying a maximum sentence of 12 years in prison. The pre-trial investigation is being conducted by the Security Service of Ukraine’s Main Directorate in Donetsk and Luhansk regions.

At the time of the invasion in February 2022, the combined collections of Mariupol’s museums held approximately 60,000 exhibits, including a charter signed by Catherine II in 1779, a Torah scroll with ivory handles, a 13th-century Limoges cross, and rare silver, gold coins and jewelry.

Russia’s assaults on Ukraine’s cultural identity

According to the War Sanctions portal, maintained by Ukraine’s Defense Intelligence, Russia had stolen or destroyed 2,336 cultural valuables from Ukraine as of April 1, 2026, with 289 individuals and 53 legal entities identified as involved in the looting. The database – launched jointly by the Ministry of Culture and Ukraine’s Defense Intelligence – shows that more than 1,233 paintings were stolen from the Kherson Art Gallery alone.

On Monday, Russia launched one of its largest aerial attacks on Ukraine since the beginning of the invasion, striking the historic Orthodox monastery Pechersk Lavra, a UNESCO World Heritage Site – in the capital.

The Mystetskyi Arsenal museum complex was also struck, as was the Oleksandr Dovzhenko National Film Studio, destroying Ukraine’s largest and oldest costume collection – thousands of historical items spanning nearly a century of Ukrainian film history.

The strikes came as Russia fired 681 aerial weapons overnight, killing at least 10 people across Ukraine.