The French non-profit organisation Pour l’Ukraine, pour leur liberté et la nôtre! (For Ukraine, For Their Freedom and Ours!) has accused Russia of systematic looting of Ukraine’s cultural heritage. The organisation filed a corresponding lawsuit with the International Criminal Court (ICC) on 11 July.
The lawsuit states that the large-scale looting that began with the 2022 full-scale invasion was “planned at the highest level of the Russian state”. The French organisation is demanding that arrest warrants be issued for Russian ruler Vladimir Putin and eight high-ranking Russian officials involved in these crimes.
“These acts can be classified as war crimes under international law. Led by Vladimir Putin, the implementation of this policy of systematic plunder involves senior officials from the Russian Ministry of Culture, directors of major museums, and even Sergei Naryshkin, the head of Russian foreign intelligence.”
Data provided by UNESCO shows that between February 2022 and June 2025, a total of 501 cultural sites in Ukraine were damaged by Russia. These include 151 religious sites, 262 buildings of historical and/or artistic value, 34 museums, 33 monuments, 18 libraries, 1 archive and 2 archaeological sites.
The organisation stated that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has led to the largest looting of cultural heritage in Europe during an international armed conflict since the Second World War.
Christian Castagna, the advocacy manager of Pour l’Ukraine, pour leur liberté et la nôtre!, said that the legal team is confident that the ICC Prosecutor’s Office is working on the case.
Castagna noted that this process is similar to the one that led the ICC to issue two arrest warrants for Putin over the unlawful deportation of children.
At the time, Ukraine’s Human Rights Commissioner Dmytro Lubinets said those warrants helped secure the return of nearly 400 out of over 19,000 deported children.
In May, Pour l’Ukraine, pour leur liberté et la nôtre! launched a petition demanding that Russia be expelled from the International Council of Museums (ICOM) for violating the code of ethics. If ICOM fails to act, the organisation has vowed to take the matter to court.
by www.pravda.com.ua