Ambassador Oksana Markarova and First Secretary Katja Smagliy participated in the Cultural Property Advisory Committee meeting. This Committee examined Ukraine’s request for import restrictions with the United States pursuant to Article 9 of the 1970 UNESCO Convention and the Convention on Cultural Property Implementation Act.

The Advisory Committee is studying threats to the preservation of Ukrainian cultural heritage amid full-scale Russian aggression and the temporary occupation of Ukrainian territories.

One of the tragic consequences of Russia's war against Ukraine is the plundering of Ukrainian rich cultural heritage by Russian armed forces and criminals. Today, in the temporarily occupied territories, Russia continues to appropriate Ukrainian museum collections, loot churches and religious buildings, export archives, and plunder archaeological sites and private collections.

If imposed, the restrictions would help to close U.S. markets to Ukraine’s cultural property that had been either looted, stolen, or illegally exported as a result of Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine.