About 1.5M museum exhibits remained in temporarily occupied territories – Karandieiev

About 1.5 million museum exhibits remained in temporarily occupied territories, and their fate remains unknown.

Ukraine's Acting Minister of Culture and Information Policy, Rostyslav Karandieiev, said this on Ukrainian television, according to an Ukrinform correspondent.

"We lost a lot of museum exhibits. Some of them were looted, and some of them were damaged by enemy shelling. According to our approximate estimates, about 1.5 million exhibits are now in the occupied territory, and their fate is currently unknown to us," Karandieiev said.

He noted that there are also losses in the de-occupied territories. Russian invaders violate international law and appropriate what does not belong to them.

"We document these crimes. This is done in two ways. First, according to international protocols jointly with UNESCO, as well as according to our national ones. And there will soon be a time when, based on these testimonies, these documents, we will be able to prepare lawsuits against the aggressor state, which will certainly find their fair solution," Karandieiev said.

Earlier reports said that 453,000 museum objects had been evacuated due to Russia's war against Ukraine.