Following a lengthy investigation, we were able to determine the modus operandi of this plundering, orchestrated at the highest levels of the Russian state, and identify the principal perpetrators of acts aimed at appropriating Ukrainian cultural heritage. These acts can be classified as war crimes under international law. Directed by Vladimir Putin, the implementation of this policy of spoliation involves high-ranking officials from the Russian Ministry of Culture, through the directors of major museums, and even Sergei Naryshkin, the head of Russian foreign intelligence.

Therefore, we request that the Office of the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court:

• REQUESTS Pre-Trial Chamber II to issue arrest warrants as soon as possible for those most responsible for these crimes within the Russian administrative and political apparatus and institutional and non-institutional organizations under its control, including Vladimir Putin; Tatiana Alexeyevna Golikova; Denis Vladimirovich Molchanov; Olga Lyubimova; Sergei Obryvalin; Sergei Naryshkin; Andrei Vitalievich Malgin; Mikhail Piotrovsky and Alexandr Shkolnik.

  
  

Sylvie Rollet, president of "For Ukraine, for their freedom and ours!"

Emmanuel Daoud, lawyer at the Paris Bar, registered on the lists of Counsel to the ICC, VIGO firm

Since the conquest of Crimea in 2014 and the large-scale operation launched on February 24, 2022, Russia's invasion of Ukraine has been accompanied by a policy aimed at eradicating Ukrainian identity . Russian aggression is not limited to the deliberate destruction of cultural sites throughout the country (see the damage documented by UNESCO (1)). It has resulted in the most extensive spoliation of cultural heritage in Europe during an international armed conflict since the Second World War. (2).

In the territories occupied by Russia (which are the focus of our investigation), the erasure of Ukrainian identity is achieved through the appropriation and Russification of Ukraine's cultural heritage:

• Banning of the Ukrainian language and systematic destruction of all works in the Ukrainian language;

• Systematic looting of museums in the occupied zone, supervised by officials sent by Russia, and frequently followed by exhibitions in Russian museums of the looted works;

• Systematic destruction of all places bearing the memory of Ukrainian artists.

(1) https://www.unesco.org/fr/articles/sites-culturels-endommagels-en-ukraine-confirmes-par-lunesco

As of June 25, 2025, UNESCO confirms that 501 sites have been damaged since February 24, 2022: 151 religious buildings, 34 museums, 262 historical and/or artistic buildings, 33 monuments and 18 libraries, 1 archive and 2 archaeological sites.

(2) https://www.ukrinform.fr/rubric-society/3980949-les-russes-ont-vole-plus-de-1-700-000-uvres-dart-et-biens-culturels-dans-les-territoires-occupes-de-lukraine.html