Boris Babin, a legal advisor at BARRISTERS, spoke at the roundtable discussion titled “Crimean Landmarks: The Current State of Ukraine’s Cultural Heritage,” organized by the Ukrainian Cultural Foundation and the Ukrainian House.

The final document of the “roundtable” on issues related to the protection of cultural heritage in the Autonomous Republic of Crimea must include measures to identify those involved in organizing excavations and the removal of cultural artifacts from the territory of Crimea.

This was stated during the roundtable at Ukrinform by Boris Babin, a scientific advisor at BARRISTERS, Doctor of Law, professor, and chief scientific consultant at the Verkhovna Rada’s Institute of Legislation.

“The key beneficiaries of all these excavations are well known—they are Russian scientific and historical institutions—but none of them are subject to state sanctions,” said Boris Babin.

According to him, sanctions are in place against Crimean cultural institutions, “including the Nizhnegorsk District Historical Museum—which is a good thing, but it has no impact whatsoever on actual policy regarding the protection of Crimea’s cultural heritage.”

Furthermore, the lawyer believes that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine must be involved in proposals to strengthen the protection of Crimean artifacts from the Russian occupiers.

“We currently have representative functions in the aggressor country, and since we are already there, we need to define a more active role for them in uncovering the facts—not just the relocation of artifacts, which is indeed sometimes difficult to detect — but the facts of the display of relevant Crimean exhibits in museums and other institutions of the Russian Federation,” noted Boris Babin.

According to him, Ukrainian law enforcement agencies—which do not trust information from the Internet—would benefit from our consular staff documenting the removal of artifacts from Crimea and their display at leading cultural venues in the aggressor state.

All of this, the lawyer believes, would significantly advance efforts to include on Ukraine’s sanctions lists key figures involved in both illegal excavations in Crimea and the transfer of cultural heritage objects from Crimea to Russia.

However, Boris Babin believes that information on this topic in Ukraine is being ignored by both law enforcement agencies and the relevant ministries.

“Everything I’m talking about was supported at the time during a meeting of the Verkhovna Rada’s Committee on Culture. In the fall of 2018, the relevant proposals were submitted to the executive branch and law enforcement agencies, but there has been no response to date,” stated the former Representative of the President of Ukraine in the Autonomous Republic of Crimea.

He cited as an example a recent scandal in Argentina, where, as it turned out, “the former president of Argentina was keeping a Chilean national artifact in her possession that had been gifted to her… by Putin.”

According to Boris Babin, this fact illustrates how Russia might treat the cultural heritage of other countries and what could happen to Crimean artifacts.