WAR PROPAGANDA: Ukraine pays for western weapons with museum exhibits
Volodymyr Zelensky pays for Western weapons with Ukrainian museum exhibits, according to a new false narrative promoted by the Russian press and pro-Kremlin Telegram channels. In reality, museum exhibits have been evacuated from the east and south of the country to the western regions or taken from exhibition halls to shelters so as not to be destroyed by Russian bombing.
NEWS: “Zelensky pays for Western weapons with exhibits from Ukrainian museums”, says the Telegram channel Kharkov Z .
Earlier this year, in Kharkov, Nikolaev, Dnepropetrovsk and other cities, several exhibits were prepared for evacuation.
In March-April, most museum were closed and the halls became empty.
We can find a lot of information in the press about closed museums, but no one knows where the exhibits were taken. Recently I have found out that most of the collections of the Historical and Art Museum in Kharkov, but also those in Dnepropetrovsk, Nikolaev and even Lvov are now in Denmark, in the Osgor Museum. Moreover, some of the exhibits are already shown to the public.
Not all of a couple of old tanks several thousand tanks got hold of historical relics”.
NARRATIVE: Ukraine pays for western weapons with Ukrainian museum exhibits
WHY THE NARRATIVE IS FALSE: The news starts from a post on the Telegram channel of the pro-Russian politician Aleksandr Semchenko, who writes that Ukraine has paid for weapons from the West with museum exhibits . He claims that, for a couple of old tanks, “Westerners got hold of historical relics”, and this information has been carried by the Russian media.
The only evidence posted on the Telegram channel is the image of a painting transported, apparently, from Kharkov abroad. In reality, the image represents the evacuation of a painting from the “Andrey Sheptisky” Museum in Lvov. The evacuation took place in March amid bombings in western Ukraine. All the paintings were moved from the exhibition hall to shelters.
The evacuation of museum collections was decided because Russia had destroyed several museums and cultural monuments in Ukraine. On May 7, the Russian troops bombed the “Grigori Skovoroda” National Museum. More than 25 works by the painter Maria Primacenko from the Museum in the town of Ivankovo in the Kyiv region were destroyed. Cultural homes, theaters, universities and schools were also destroyed. In order to be able to defend these and other civilian targets, Kyiv has called on the West to provide weapons.
The Russian press does not offer any evidence, other than the false photographic one mentioned earlier, to prove that the Ukrainian exhibits are offered to European states in exchange for weapons. According to an analysis conducted by the Ukrainian press, most museums encounter difficulties during the evacuation, and this process is regulated by an order of the Cabinet of Ministers, which, among other things, prohibits the transport of exhibits abroad.
