Russia plans to auction off Ivan Aivazovsky’s stolen “Moonlit Night” painting for over $1 million on 18 February, defying an international wanted order for the work’s return to Ukraine.
From: Euromaiden Press BY YURI ZORIA
In Russia, Ukrainian artist Ivan Aivazovsky’s painting “Moonlit Night” has been put up for auction, according to Ukraine’s former Deputy Attorney General and Prosecutor of the Autonomous Republic of Crimea, Gyunduz Mamedov, who has reported the auction plans.
Russia’s looting and destruction of Ukrainian museums and cultural heritage sites have resulted in significant losses, with nearly 40 museums plundered and almost 700 heritage sites damaged or destroyed since the invasion began in February 2022, causing cultural losses estimated in the hundreds of millions of euros.
The first report that “Moonlit Night” will be the main lot of the auction, which will take place at the Moscow Auction House on 18 February, appeared on the Telegram channel by Russia’s state-funded news agency RIA Novosti, noting that the painting was estimated at 100 million rubles (approximately $1.09 million) before the sale.
‘In 2017, [Interpol], at the request of [Prosecutor’s Office of the Republic of Crimea], put the paintings on the international wanted list. Thus, Russia openly disregards [international law], as according to the 1970 UNESCO Convention, the export of cultural properties and transfer of ownership is prohibited,” Mamedov emphasized on X.
In 2014, during the early stages of Russia’s occupation of Crimea, Aivazovsky’s painting “Moonlit Night” was illegally transferred to the Simferopol Art Museum, along with 52 other artworks.
Voice of Ukraine 