Interpol issued an arrest warrant for paintings illegally transported to museum in occupied Crimea

52 paintings from the Museum Fund of Ukraine, belonged to artists of the XVIII-XIX centuries, were illegally transferred to the Simferopol Art Museum in March 2014. Interpol issued a state and interstate wanted notice for them now.

The Prosecutor's Office of the Autonomous Republic of Crimea press office reported about it on Facebook.

«Among them there are such world-famous artifacts, as Ivan Aivazovsky's «Moonlit Night», Ivan Shishkin's «The Road in the Woods», Isaak Levitan's «Swamp and others», the department noted.

Estimated value of museum artifacts by March 20, 2014 was approximately $ 1 324 000 (USD).

«Issuing the wanted notice for cultural property by Interpol will speed up its returning to the Museum Fund of Ukraine. The prosecutor's office will provide a legal assessment to each fact of illegal possession and use of the property that belongs to another state. In addition, the guilty persons will stand trial», the prosecutor of the ARC Gunduz Mamedov said.

To remind some facts, on December 14, 2016 the District Court of Amsterdam refused to return to the occupied Crimea collection of artifacts, which were transported at the exhibition «Crimea: Gold and Secrets of the Black Sea» to the Amsterdam Museum of Allard Pierson in 2014 before the annexation of Crimea.

Exhibition included artifacts from the Central Museum of Tauris, the Kerch Historical and Cultural Reserve, the Bakhchisaray Historical and Cultural Reserve and the National Reserve of Tauric Chersonesos in the Amsterdam museum.

In January, 2017, the Crimean museums filed a petition against the decision of the District Court of Amsterdam.