Ukraine accuses Russia of looting museums as a part of heritage battle | 60 Minutes

In October, a UN report discovered new proof that Russia had dedicated battle crimes in Ukraine with deliberate killings and widespread use of torture. But they’ve but to look at the intentional destruction of cultural property, which is also a battle crime. Ukraine accuses Russian forces of focusing on church buildings, libraries, and looting the nation’s most necessary museums. And whereas plunder is as previous as battle itself, Ukrainian investigators say that is completely different. They see a marketing campaign of cultural genocide to destroy Ukraine’s id as a nation. As we reported in November, a community of cultural warriors in Ukraine is constructing the case towards Russia. It’s a heritage battle, one instructed us. And we joined them on the frontlines. 

Not a lot was left of the tiny village of Viazivka, a number of hours northwest of Kyiv, after Russian forces overwhelmed the area in 2022. But we weren’t ready for this…

Bill Whitaker: My God, so Ihor what occurred right here?

Ihor Poshyvailo: Liberation of Ukraine by Russian occupation forces. You see what this liberation means.

Bill Whitaker: Why would they aim a church?

Ihor Poshyvailo: In this small village this was the principle place. And it was focused simply to destroy what retains the entire village and the entire neighborhood collectively.

Ihor Poshyvailo is director of the Contemporary Maidan Museum in Kyiv. He’d introduced us to see the carcass of the Church of the Nativity on Ukraine’s heritage record. Poshyvailo instructed us the Russians had intentionally shelled it once they retreated. There was no combating close by. Built in 1862, the church had survived two world wars, communism, and a revolution. however not this. 

Bill Whitaker: So what message do you assume the Russians had been attempting to ship by destroying this church?

Ihor Poshyvailo: We are sturdy. You must be afraid of us. And we are going to do what we wish to do. We do not want you on this land. We do not want your traditions, beliefs, your tradition. You’ll not, you may not exist. 

Bill Whitaker: Erase you.

Ihor Poshyvailo: Erase you, precisely. 

As we sifted via the wreckage, Poshyvailo instructed us the church had been well-known for its distinctive centuries-old people artwork.

Bill Whitaker: And these are all work?

Ihor Poshyvailo: Yes, and you’ll see that they nonetheless have…

Bill Whitaker: Wow, have a look at that.

He instructed us this was one in all 700 church buildings which have been hit to this point. Some had been collateral harm. Many weren’t. To doc the destruction, Poshyvailo co-founded the Heritage Emergency Response Initiative, a form of cultural SWAT staff that travels to broken websites, interviewing eyewitnesses, and saving what they will.

Ihor Poshyvailo: It’s a nightmare for me as a result of each morning I rise up and I believe that is it is, it is not actuality, what now we have and on the identical time, the sentiments that we are going to by no means forgive.

Bill Whitaker: Never forgive?

Ihor Poshyvailo: We won’t ever forgive. I imply, the cultural legacy, cultural heritage, that is what makes us wealthy and what now we have to guard and cross to future generations. That’s why I can see that it is one of many entrance strains of this battle. Because destroying our previous, Russians tries to destroy our future.

It’s not solely church buildings. Hundreds of museums, libraries, and monuments have been bombed, burned, or shelled. In 2022, the Russians razed this small people museum close to Kyiv to the bottom. Nearby buildings had been untouched. Farther east, Russian artillery destroyed this museum. Locals carried out the one surviving statue of its patron saint like a wounded affected person. 

Poshyvailo—and others—instructed us they imagine it is a technique that comes straight from the Kremlin. For years, Russian President Vladimir Putin has publicly dismissed Ukraine’s proper to exist in any respect. “We are all Russians,” he stated. Many museum staff have been arrested—even kidnapped—by Russian troopers.

Bill Whitaker: You do not often consider museum staff as being in peril. 

Milena Chorna: Oh they’re among the many first individuals Russians come for.

Bill Whitaker: Why?

Milena Chorna: Well to begin with, they’re within the collections. Where did they conceal the collections? Uh what’s the worth of the collections? And the second cause is, uh, museum staff are leaders, uh, of their neighborhood. 

Milena Chorna is head of worldwide reveals on the National War Museum in Kyiv. She helped arrange a museum disaster hotline for staff within the battle zone attempting to save lots of their collections. They had been quickly swamped with requires assist: sending cash for Russian bribes, devising escape routes, hiding work, and generally simply to speak. 

Milena Chorna: You minimize off all of your feelings attempting to do all the pieces you’ll be able to to assist. Putting all of it via your self, it’s actually tough. And sooner or later, you notice, yeah, that you’ve got PTSD already, though you have not been to the forefront. 

Milena Chorna instructed us many staff truly moved into their museums to assist guard the collections, even because the bombs fell. In the north, through the siege of Chernihiv, she instructed us about one museum employee who moved in along with her 8-year-old daughter. There was no electrical energy, no water, no warmth. 

Weeks later, volunteers attempting to ship a generator to the museum had been killed. 

Bill Whitaker: She stayed?

Milena Chorna: She stayed. She stayed till the liberation, sure. And now, she is within the military.

Bill Whitaker: What do you consider that? 

Milena Chorna: I imagine sooner or later, she might need, uh, acknowledged that, uh, what we’re doing shouldn’t be adequate. And sooner or later we are going to all need to change into troopers, we would all need to change into troopers.

Ukraine has accused Russia of looting greater than 30 museums, calling it the largest artwork theft because the Nazis in World War II. In Kherson, Russian troopers minimize work from frames, dragged out priceless antiques, and cleaned out greater than 10,000 artworks. Even so, Chorna instructed us, many museum staff would not go away.

Milena Chorna: How can I go away this stuff to be looted or destroyed, if I do know it is the historical past that may final for generations? 

Bill Whitaker: Can you clarify that zeal to me? 

Milena Chorna: I may not be capable to say that with out feelings uh, however um um I believe that um properly talking of myself uh, I perceive that uh the worth of this stuff it is a lot larger than the worth of my life.

Bill Whitaker: Higher than the worth of your life?

Milena Chorna: Yes, sure, as a result of the scope of have an effect on these artifacts can have on future generations, it is uncomparable to the scope of have an effect on, me, myself, a single individual, can do for the tradition. 

Chorna instructed us a high Russian goal was Ukraine’s priceless Scythian gold assortment on the Melitopol Museum. Museum staff rapidly hid the treasures in cardboard bins within the museum’s dank unfinished basement. When the Russians invaded, they wasted no time earlier than heading to the museum, threatening to shoot the locks off the door to interrupt in. This CCTV footage—by no means broadcast earlier than—reveals the Russians harassing staff, looking the museum, stashing what they took in white fabric sacks. That morning, they left with out discovering the gold. Undeterred, a gaggle of troopers turned up on the door of museum director Leila Ibrahimova and kidnapped her.

Bill Whitaker: They put a bag over your head and kidnapped you?

Leila Ibrahimova in Ukrainian (English translation): I used to be very scared, she instructed us. There had been eight of them. They had been carrying balaclavas and carried machine weapons. One soldier did all of the speaking. They turned my home the wrong way up, then they put a bag on my head and put me in a automobile. 

Ibrahimova is in hiding so we agreed to not present her face. She instructed us the Russians interrogated her in regards to the museum however she refused to cooperate. They let her go however when her identify later surfaced on a Russian execution record, she fled the nation.

Leila Ibrahimova in Ukrainian (English translation): My life was in danger, she instructed us, and staying would jeopardize my colleagues, my household. I used to be afraid my husband and son can be searched once more. 

In the tip, the Russians discovered the gold: 198 historic gold artifacts price untold tens of millions.

The Russians’ plunder has all of the earmarks of a battle crime, in keeping with Vitaliy Tytych, a legal lawyer of 30 years. 

He leads a brand new unit of the Ukrainian army investigating Russia’s focusing on of heritage websites. Intentionally looting or destroying cultural property throughout a battle is against the law. But Tytych instructed us, the Russians have flipped the legislation on its head.

Vitaliy Tytych in Ukrainian (English translation): The Russians maintain saying they’re evacuating these artifacts to safeguard them through the combating, he instructed us, and they’re going to return them when the battle is over. That is a lie and we’re able to show it.

But Tytych instructed us he is below no illusions. There have solely been two convictions for cultural battle crimes because the legislation was handed in 1954.

Bill Whitaker: So Ukraine needs to prosecute Russia for battle crimes. How possible do you assume they are going to truly be prosecuted?

Vitaliy Tytych in Ukrainian (English translation): I’m frightened, he instructed us. The International treaties to forestall battle crimes haven’t confirmed efficient. Nor, he stated, has the worldwide legal court docket however that is all we have. 

In the village of Lukashivka, exterior Chernihiv, museum director Ihor Poshyvailo confirmed us what was left after the Russians arrange a base camp inside this church, a protected architectural monument. 

In the battle to power the Russians out, a large fireplace demolished the church’s historic frescos.

Ihor Poshyvailo: Here’s additionally you’ll be able to see, you’ll be able to see the plaster from the wall…

Bill Whitaker: You nonetheless have the cross right here.

Ihor Poshyvailo: Yeah, so the the church itself had so many layers of historical past and tradition however all the pieces is misplaced now.

In the nave…this was all that was left. Ooshyvailo instructed us this battle is about greater than land.

Ihor Poshyvailo: This is a battle towards our historic reminiscence, towards our being Ukrainian.

Bill Whitaker: You stated earlier than towards your soul.

Ihor Poshyvailo: Against, precisely, towards our soul, towards all the pieces which makes us Ukrainians completely different from Russia. And this battle has indicators of being a genocide battle towards Ukrainian nation. 

Bill Whitaker: Genocide? You take into account this genocide?

Ihor Poshyvailo: Yes. Because it is, it is an try and completely destroy Ukraine and Ukrainian nation.

But it can by no means work, Poshyvailo instructed us. The extra the Russians assault, the extra resilient Ukrainians change into. We noticed proof of that on the Holy Dormition Cathedral in Kyiv. A 3D laser scanner was meticulously capturing each architectural element in order that if catastrophe strikes, the church could be rebuilt. It’s work that is happening throughout the nation, saving the cultural soul of Ukraine for future generations.

Produced by Heather Abbott. Associate producer, LaCrai Scott. Broadcast affiliate, Mariah B. Campbell. Edited by Craig Crawford.