9 months after the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Lithuanian museum curator Skaistis Mikulionis lastly noticed a chance to evacuate two Dutch masterpieces from the Odesa Museum of Western and Jap Artwork. Earlier than the struggle started, Mikulionis had organized to exhibit the paintings in Lithuania, and he was not going to let the struggle alter his plans. With Odesa below common bombardment, the dangerous operation had an important second goal: Preserve the work protected till they could possibly be returned residence. In order many Ukrainians had been fleeing the nation, Mikulionis headed towards the entrance strains to rescue Frans Hals’ vividly private portraits of the evangelists Luke and Matthew.
“Solely idiots aren’t afraid,” mentioned the curator, “however it’s merely our obligation to assist.”
Two volunteer riflemen drive Skaistis Mikulionis and work from Ukraine to Lithuania in a particular museum transportation automobile on Aug. 27, 2024. Courtesy of Skaistis Mikulionis/Lithuanian Nationwide Museum of Artwork
For the reason that begin of the struggle, Lithuania, a small Baltic nation that borders Belarus and the Russian exclave of Kaliningrad, has been evacuating artworks from Ukraine. The gadgets are stored in protected services of the Lithuanian Nationwide Museum of Artwork, proven to the general public at exhibitions, and, if wanted, restored by first-class professionals. Based on the Ukrainian authorities, Russia has looted over 35,000 museum gadgets and at present controls 2.1 million extra in its occupied territories. Lithuania, which has its personal historical past of being occupied by each imperial Russia and the Soviet Union, can also be planning a safety protocol to safeguard its personal artwork within the occasion of one other invasion.
The Frans Hals evacuation was the primary of a few dozen journeys Mikulionis has made to Ukraine since 2022. “I can’t even bear in mind the precise quantity,” he informed Overseas Coverage. Up to now, his efforts have led to the evacuation of over 1,500 artworks and the manufacturing of 20 reveals in Lithuania. Mikulionis describes it as a joint endeavor involving over 80 Lithuanian museum employees, and dozens of Ukrainian artwork specialists {and professional} brokers who volunteered their time.
Mikulionis carries a portray by Maria Prymachenko on the Borys Voznytsky Lviv Nationwide Artwork Gallery in Ukraine on Aug. 25, 2024. Courtesy of Skaistis Mikulionis/Lithuanian Nationwide Museum of Artwork
Even and not using a struggle, transferring artwork is a closely regulated course of that requires navigating a protracted bureaucratic web of contracts and insurance coverage. It begins with an settlement between two establishments, adopted by customs clearances, police escorts, insurance coverage agreements, and the presence of pros from either side on the pick-up and drop-off factors.
In a territory bombed each day, security turns into a fair greater concern. For that reason, Mikulionis has been accompanied in his journeys by the Riflemen’s Union, a volunteer paramilitary group backed by the Lithuanian authorities. The union’s over 19,000 members help state establishments in peacetime and prepare to be prepared within the occasion of invasion. In the course of the artwork evacuation, they had been tasked with escorting Mikulionis and the paintings. To take action, they drove a specialised van, with air-ride suspension and temperature and humidity management, throughout three nations.
In Ukraine, as soon as Mikulionis and his workforce took possession of the artworks, they had been escorted always by the nationwide police till they reached the border. Customs officers then checked all of the documentation and allow them to into Poland, the place the Lithuanian Embassy in Warsaw had ensured that the journey may proceed immediately. Lastly, on the border with Lithuania, armed riflemen and museum employees waited to accompany the convoy for the previous few miles till it reached Vilnius. There, the crates had been unloaded at museum services, acclimatized for twenty-four hours, and opened in entrance of Ukrainian representatives earlier than the ultimate paperwork was signed.
Firefighters verify the roof of the Assumption Cathedral of the Kyiv Pechersk Lavra after an assault in a single day on June 15. The eleventh century historic cathedral was considerably broken within the assault. Paula Bronstein/Getty Photos
In June, a Russian assault on Kyiv severely broken the millennium-old Pechersk Lavra monastery complicated, a UNESCO World Heritage web site. The waves of drones and missiles killed 5 folks and hit the Dormition Cathedral, in what Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky known as “one in every of Russia’s most critical crimes in opposition to Christian tradition thus far.”
UNESCO has independently verified the injury to 540 Ukrainian cultural websites, together with 155 spiritual ones and 43 museums. One of many victims of the early days of the struggle was the Ivankiv Native Historical past Museum, which housed over 20 work by the legendary Ukrainian artist Maria Prymachenko. A rural, self-taught artist, Prymachenko’s colourful people work gained her vast acclaim: Picasso known as her an “inventive miracle” and UNESCO declared 2009 the yr of Prymachenko. When the Ivankiv museum was bombed, neighbors reportedly broke into the burning constructing and carried out a number of work earlier than the ceiling collapsed. However they may not rescue all of them.
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A lady in a white lab coat stands in a conservation studio, wanting down at a shiny yellow portray that includes pink flowers and a stylized animal laid flat on a piece desk. The background exhibits rolls of paper, numerous instruments, and workshop furnishings. - Eglė Piščikaitė, an knowledgeable on artworks on paper, works on the conservation of 15 work by Ukrainian artist Maria Prymachenk in Vilnius on March 12. Pau Torres Pagès for Overseas Coverage
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A detailed-up view of a vibrant folk-art portray of a person holding a stringed instrument, surrounded by pink flowers on a inexperienced background. A big round magnifying lamp is positioned over the paintings, illuminating the middle. - A Prymachenko portray representing the return of exiled poet Taras Shevchenko to Ukraine is examined on the tables of the Pranas Gudynas Centre in Vilnius on March 12. Pau Torres Pagès for Overseas Coverage
Nearly two years in the past, Mikulionis was tasked with what he considers one in every of his most vital missions: evacuating one other Prymachenko assortment. “She is among the symbols of Ukraine,” mentioned the curator. Initially saved within the Zaporizhzhia Regional Museum of Artwork, close to the struggle’s entrance line, the 100-painting assortment was moved by the Ukrainians to Lviv very early on. After an inspection, the Lithuanian workforce realized that 15 of the work had been broken however may nonetheless be restored.
The Pranas Gudynas Conservation Middle, additionally a part of the Lithuanian Nationwide Museum of Artwork, took on the restoration. The middle’s consultants are a number of the finest within the area, however Prymachenko’s non-traditional supplies and methods nonetheless posed a problem. Prymachenko used a modified watercolor paint often called gouache, a medium that has not been broadly studied for restoration. The middle has now acquired new equipment for the restoration, and the work are ready to be returned to their authentic state.
Alongside Ukrainian work, Lithuania can also be internet hosting Ukrainian restorers. There have been 27 in 2025, and dozens extra will arrive this yr. For just a few weeks, trainees get a crash course on state-of-the-art methods and machines which might be much less out there in Ukraine. Ingrida Bagociuniene, for instance, has been educating Ukrainian restorers how one can deal with gold-coated gadgets. “Ukraine has a whole lot of these sorts of objects, however they don’t have the folks to revive them,” she mentioned. As Ukrainian restorers acquire new expertise, additionally they construct skilled relationships and friendships, and in lots of circumstances have continued to debate methods and challenges over cellphone and e mail.
The Vilnius Image Gallery, one in every of 9 exhibition facilities that the Lithuanian Nationwide Museum of Artwork operates throughout the nation, on March 18, 2026. Samuel Wands for Overseas Coverage
The struggle in Ukraine wasn’t the primary time Mikulionis had labored to safeguard artwork in opposition to a Putin aggression. In 2008, he jumped right into a aircraft to evacuate paintings by Niko Pirosmani from Georgia. In 2020, after the Crimean annexation however earlier than the full-scale struggle, Lithuania and Ukraine collaborated on an exhibit entitled “Civilisations of Ukraine.” Over 80 artifacts from the gathering of the Nationwide Museum of the Historical past of Ukraine had been despatched to be displayed in Lithuania. For Mikulionis, it was an effort to remind the world of the millennia-old historical past of the area, from the Bronze Age to the 2013 Euromaidan protests. “When Putin’s imperial Russia started denying the existence of Ukrainian civilization,” he mentioned, “the exhibition confirmed that there have been many civilizations within the territory of Ukraine, and they’re very historical, with a really dignified, complicated, and delightful historical past.”
Lithuania additionally has its personal artwork to fret about. On Lithuanian Independence Restoration Day, the Riflemen swore in new recruits. After carrying a large Ukrainian flag throughout Independence Sq. in Vilnius, Colonel Linas Idzelis informed Overseas Coverage, “We stay subsequent to a volcano.”
A member of the European Union and NATO, Lithuania stays ready for “Day X,” or the hypothetical begin of a Russian invasion. The Lithuanian authorities provides civilian preparedness programs, together with first help workshops and drone-flying programs for kids as younger as 10. The Riflemen’s Union would be part of the Lithuanian army in its efforts to guard the nation if a struggle erupts.
A stand exhibits help for Ukraine at a avenue market in Kaunas, Lithuania’s second-largest metropolis, on March 15. Pau Torres Pagès for Overseas Coverage
Studying from the Ukrainian expertise, the Lithuanian Ministry of Tradition has give you an emergency evacuation plan for its personal paintings. They worry looting much like what the nation skilled within the tsarist and Soviet eras. “There can be no portray; nothing,” mentioned Idzelis of a doable invasion. “[The Russians] are taking all the things.”
Of the over 250,000 artwork objects held by the Lithuanian Nationwide Museum of Artwork, 3,000 are on the “diamond record” for rapid evacuation. Museum director Arunas Gelunas and an knowledgeable committee needed to determine which works made the reduce. Gelunas informed Overseas Coverage that getting ready this categorized record was a “very painful” course of that concerned discussing what artworks can be Most worthy for the long run generations of Lithuanians.
In September 2024, the museum system carried out a drill. At 2 p.m., Gelunas obtained a name from the Ministry of Tradition informing him of the beginning of the train. He then needed to contact the administrators of the establishment’s facilities throughout the nation, who, in flip, knowledgeable employees. Artwork specialists quickly situated the diamond-designated artworks and had between two and three hours to soundly retailer them in crates, prepared for transportation. A number of the works had been situated in storage, however others needed to be rigorously taken down from exhibition areas and unframed. Then, they had been carried to an undisclosed location the place, in an actual battle, they might be transported to protected areas overseas. Gelunas is assured of the outcomes. “I’d say we had been 70 to 80 % profitable,” he informed Overseas Coverage.
Dalia Kaladinskienė, a information on the Vilnius Image Gallery who’s studying Ukrainian to help guests from that nation, poses subsequent to probably the most treasured work within the assortment, Wincenty Sleńdziński’s ‘Priestess’ in Vilnius on March 18. Pau Torres Pagès for Overseas Coverage
After spending two years in Berlin, the 2 Frans Hals work simply returned to Vilnius. In August, the masterpieces can be exhibited as soon as once more on the Radvila Palace Museum. The Pranas Gudynas Middle remains to be working meticulously to revive 15 of the Prymachenko work, whereas the opposite ones stay safely saved within the services of the Lithuanian Nationwide Museum of Artwork, not less than till December of this yr.
Throughout Europe, the clock is ticking for the evacuated paintings. Ukrainian legislation solely permits for exported works to stay in another country for as much as 4 years—a precept conceived for exhibitions or restoration, not for wartime evacuation. Based on Olha Sahaidak, a Ukrainian cultural coverage knowledgeable, this can be a holdover from Soviet laws that should change. Sahaidak was one of many first professionals to assist dealer an evacuation deal and despatched a Ukrainian assortment to the Louvre. By 2024, when it was clear that the struggle would last more than anticipated, she was a part of a bunch of consultants that beneficial permitting paintings to stay overseas when martial legislation was declared. Their proposal was launched as a draft legislation to the Ukrainian parliament this January.
Museum employees open crates containing 100 Prymachenko work on the Pranas Gudynas Centre in Vilnius on Aug. 29, 2024. Courtesy of Skaistis Mikulionis/Lithuanian Nationwide Museum of Artwork
Lots of Ukraine’s first artwork evacuations befell between 2023 and 2024. Now, museum employees are urging legislators to move this new legislation earlier than the four-year deadline arrives. Sahaidak mentioned that there’s consensus amongst politicians and museum administrators, however the legislature is consumed with different war-related priorities. For Sahaidak and others, although, having the nation’s heritage exhibited and saved throughout the continent has a strategic worth of its personal. “It’s about safekeeping,” she mentioned, “however it’s additionally a part of our cultural diplomacy.”
Now Sahaidak hopes for a vote by mid-July. In any other case, Mikulionis and different European curators might need to start out getting ready for the return of treasured paintings to an lively struggle zone.
The reporting for this text was supported by GlobalBeat, the worldwide reporting undertaking of New York College.
