How Can Ukraine Reclaim its Stolen Treasures?
Restitution mechanisms could include both financial compensation and ensuring the return of cultural heritage.
Also see
Justice Under Fire in Kherson
Despite huge obstacles, the regional war crimes unit is steadily assembling its cases for torture and shelling.
In a half-destroyed church in the village of Mala Komyshuvakha, Kharkiv region, eastern Ukraine, a gaping hole mars the dome of the late 19th century building.
Explosions scar its walls, and snow and rain have ruined the interior, with icons lying scattered on the floor.
“If we talk about the value of this church, it is Ukraine’s cultural and architectural heritage. It was also the heart of the community,” explained Ukrainian serviceman and campaigner Vitalii Tytych, who spent the first two years of the full-scale invasion documenting attacks on cultural sites, including Mala Komyshuvakha’s church. “The entire cultural life of the village revolved around it.”
According to Ukraine’s ministry of culture, the church is among more than 1,330 cultural heritage sites have been recorded as damaged or destroyed since Russia launched its full-scale invasion. These include both sites of local heritage and those of global significance; most recently, in early February 2025, Russia struck the historic centre of Odesa, a city on the Black Sea coast and a UNESCO world heritage site.
In addition to attacks on heritage sites, Ukrainian authorities have documented numerous cases of artifact theft from museums and cultural institutions. According to the ministry of culture, nearly 35,000 artifacts were looted from six museums in territories liberated by the Ukrainian armed forces in 2022 alone.
Other instances have also been reported in regions still under occupation, though the full scale of these thefts cannot be assessed without access to the affected areas.
One of the Ukrainian institutions that suffered significant losses due to Russian looting was the Regional Museum of Kherson in southern Ukraine. In the autumn of 2022, as Russian forces retreated from the city, they took with them over 23,000 items, including Scythian and Sarmatian gold.
Tytych - a founder of the Raphael Lemkin Society, a Ukrainian NGO campaigning to hold Russia accountable for the destruction of cultural monuments - argues that the large-scale theft of cultural treasures was partly enabled by Ukraine's failure to evacuate artifacts from border regions ahead of the full-scale invasion.
He also noted that the absence of an electronic registry of museum collections will make it hard for Ukraine to prove ownership of particular items, and will have direct consequences for future efforts to recover stolen museum collections. In addition to taking historical artifacts and artworks, Russian forces also seized documentation related to these items.
“The existence of an electronic registry allows to file official claims for these items and take measures against the illegal trafficking of valuables on the black market, should such cases arise,” Tytych continued. “Moreover, it serves as a basis for assessing damages and facilitating the return of collections through restitution mechanisms.”
Independent experts, in collaboration with representatives of Ukraine’s ministry of culture, are currently working to restore collection records and compile a list of stolen items.
Compensation and Restitution
When it comes to reparations for lost or damaged cultural landmarks, experts are focusing on the possibility of both financial compensation and, where possible, the return of unlawfully removed items.
Dmytro Koval, the co-executive director of the Truth Hounds human rights organisation, noted that there were no clearly defined mechanisms for securing compensation from an aggressor state. However, there were international examples that Ukraine could look to for guidance, he continued, including the special commission that was established in 2001 after Eritrea and Ethiopia signed a peace deal.
“Both sides submitted requests detailing the damages incurred, and the commission determined who owed what to whom,” he noted.
“Another example is the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), where the International Court of Justice (ICJ), with the involvement of auditors, assessed the damages. The international court was able to determine what Uganda ultimately owed to Congo,”
In 2022, the ICJ issued a final ruling that Uganda must pay the DRC 325 million US dollars as compensation for loss of life, infrastructure damage and economic losses. However, the ruling did not include separate compensation for the destruction of cultural sites or the loss of heritage.
In Koval’s view, the model most relevant for Ukraine could the one used after Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait in 1990. The compensation fund was financed through revenues from Iraqi oil sales.
Russia, Koval noted, was a “resource-based” economy, selling large amounts of raw materials on the global market.
“There are assets that could be pinched off and used for compensation. However, our situation may have its own specifics, as Russia is likely to resist such efforts,” Koval said.
There is no expectation among experts that Russia will voluntarily return valuables taken from Ukrainian territory once the fighting ends.
Koval pointed out that forced restitution remained an option if certain artifacts ended up in other countries that adhere to international law and can be traced. Ukraine would then have a chance to reclaim them.
Koval also noted that so-called compensatory restitution had been used in previous conflicts, particularly after World War II when the Soviet Union carried out large-scale removal of German material assets, including everything from industrial equipment to cultural valuables.
For example, a collection of gold found by the German archaeologist Heinrich Schliemann in Troy is now still housed in the Pushkin Museum in Moscow.
Tytych posited that, in theory, this might mean that Russia could return treasures such as the Scythian gold which was taken from Ukraine in 18th and 19th centuries and is now currently held in the Hermitage in St Petersburg.
However, Koval cautioned against steps such as the removal of valuables from the part of the Kursk region currently controlled by Ukraine, adding that "we would damage our reputation far more than we would gain meaningful compensation for the treasures we have lost".
Real work on the return of cultural property can begin only after the end of hostilities, when some kind of ceasefire agreement is signed.
The ministry of culture did not respond to questions regarding restitution mechanisms, although they noted that they were currently working on developing “a national system for recording damage and losses to the cultural sphere caused by the Russian Federation’s aggression against Ukraine”.
As for the full-scale restoration of most damaged sites, this is not yet possible due a lack of funding and the ongoing hostilities. However, the ministry of culture reported that some restoration or stabilisation work has already been carried out using donor funds.
"For instance, with the support of UNESCO, the Spaso-Preobrazhensky Cathedral in Odesa (which was damaged by a Russian missile strike in the summer of 2023) is being restored,” the ministry said in a statement. “A thorough inspection was conducted, urgent repairs were carried out, and fire protection, waterproofing, and thermal insulation systems were installed on the roof. The heating system is also being restored.”
However, neither restoration nor financial compensation can truly heal the damage suffered by Ukrainian culture as a result of the war.
Tytych does not believe that the church in the Kharkiv region village will ever be rebuilt, like many other cultural sites located in villages and cities devastated by the war.
“And who would need it now?” he said. “It used to be a place where the community gathered. But now the village is empty. Everyone has left.”
