Treasured Paintings Burned in Russian Invasion, Ukrainian Officials Say - Summer 2022

NEW YORK, NY.- Roughly 25 paintings by celebrated Ukrainian artist Maria Primachenko were burned as a result of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the country’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a statement posted to social media Monday.

The destruction of the works has not been independently confirmed by The New York Times.

In a tweet, the ministry said that the works had been housed inside a historical museum in the town of Ivankiv, about 50 miles northwest of Kyiv, the capital. Ministry officials praised the painter, known for her colorful folk art style, for having created “world-famous masterpieces.”

Damian Koropeckyj, a senior analyst at the Cultural Heritage Monitoring Lab at the Virginia Museum of Natural History, said that satellite imagery confirmed the museum had been destroyed. The lab, a partnership with the Smithsonian Institution, is monitoring cultural heritage sites at risk in Ukraine.

Video posted to social media over the weekend and reported on by the Times shows Ukrainian soldiers engaging in intense fighting at a traffic circle near Ivankiv.

As reports of the destruction spread on social media, admirers of Primachenko mourned on social media. “The loss is immeasurable,” Oksana Lyniv, a prominent conductor from western Ukraine who became the first woman to conduct an opera at the Bayreuth Festival in Germany last summer, wrote on Twitter.

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.

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