Is Crimea Losing Its Culture? How Russia Destroys and Appropriates the Peninsula’s Heritage

Since the occupation of Crimea in 2014, Russian authorities have systematically appropriated the peninsula’s cultural heritage. This includes the seizure of Ukrainian museums, archaeological sites, and art collections, the removal of thousands of artifacts to Russia, and policies aimed at erasing local cultural identity through forced assimilation.

Over the years of occupation, Crimea has lost at least hundreds of thousands of unique cultural objects, some of them irreversibly. This episode examines how Russia loots Crimea’s cultural heritage and why these actions constitute a crime.