Beyond Reparations: Ukraine Must Reclaim Its Stolen Cultural Heritage

Beyond reparations, Ukraine must reclaim the cultural heritage stolen by Muscovy.

As is well known, during the tragic events of the twentieth century and throughout three hundred years of Ukraine’s incorporation into the Russian Empire and the USSR, vast numbers of cultural treasures were effectively stolen from the Ukrainian people. An additional range of valuables was looted by criminal networks for sale on the global art and antiquities market.

One of the core responsibilities of Ukraine’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Ministry of Internal Affairs, Security Service of Ukraine, and other state institutions must be the recovery of these lost assets.

However, it is not only material values that must be returned.

The Russian Empire, the Soviet Union, and later the Russian Federation appropriated Ukraine’s history itself, exploiting Ukrainian historical achievements both in domestic propaganda and on the international stage. This was done while having no legitimate connection to that history and while deliberately diminishing Ukraine’s role within it.

It should also be acknowledged that distorted and inaccurate views of Ukraine’s history persist not only in Russia, but in other countries as well, including Poland. Restoring historical justice may be one of the most urgent and fundamental tasks facing the Ukrainian state.

Prior to the collapse of the USSR, Ukrainian research institutes possessed an enormous body of scientific developments and technological know-how, protected at minimum by authorship certificates and patents. These inventions belong either to individual Ukrainian citizens (or their descendants) or to the Ukrainian state, depending on the legal form under which intellectual property protection was registered.

After independence, during a period of political and economic instability, this intellectual property was stolen and sold to foreign companies.

Ukraine is therefore obligated to conduct a full inventory of these losses and demand licensing royalties—both for the benefit of the Ukrainian state and for Ukrainian scientists and inventors (or their descendants), provided they hold Ukrainian citizenship.

From the Program of National Liberation and State-Building