Crimean museum director sanctioned by EU and Switzerland

This article was first published by The Art Newspaper.

A museum director in illegally annexed Crimea has been sanctioned because he is holding thousands of works from the Ukrainian city of Kherson, which was temporarily seized by Russian president Vladimir Putin’s forces late last year.

Andrei Vitalievich Malgin, who was named by The Art Newspaper in February, was sanctioned by the European Union (EU) and Switzerland on 27 June. We reported that he had participated in a meeting with Putin in 2021, telling the Russian president that Ukraine was facing a revival of “Nazi ideology”. Putin responded to Malgin: “Thank you very much and I wish you every success.”

At the end of October 2022 Russian troops and technicians arrived at the Kherson Fine Art Museum, in what was then temporarily Russian-occupied Ukraine. They took a large number of paintings and other works, removing them to Crimea, where they were deposited at the Simferopol Art Museum (also known as the Central Museum of Taurida), which is headed by Malgin. As far as is known, they remain in storage there. Meanwhile, Ukrainian forces recaptured Kherson in November 2022, a week after the removal.

@UK_ICOM