Director of Odesa construction firm embezzled 28 million during museum renovation

The director of an Odesa construction company embezzled 28 million allocated for the repair and restoration of the Kherson Regional Art Museum named after Oleksiy Shovkunenko.

This was reported on the website of the Main Directorate of the National Police in Kherson Oblast.

According to the investigation, in 2021, the Department of Territorial Development of the Kherson Regional State Administration announced a tender for the restoration of the historic building, which was won by an Odesa-based company. In December of the same year, its director provided certificates of allegedly completed work, on the basis of which the firm received more than UAH 32.5 million from the budget.

An examination showed that the work was not fully completed, and the director misappropriated UAH 28.4 million. The company's accounts have been seized. The man is charged with misappropriation of property and money laundering, for which he faces 7 to 12 years in prison with confiscation of property.

The occupants stole most of the paintings by Kherson artist Shovkunenko from the museum. In the fall of 2022, the Russians stole 147 of the artist's 156 works, which were kept in the museum of the same name. Only nine works survived, of which one is still in the museum. The painting by Shovkunenko that remained in the museum is "Portrait of His Wife."

In total, the occupiers stole more than 10,000 works by Ukrainian, Russian, and European artists from the Kherson Art Museum. So far, the location of 106 stolen works has been identified. It is known that 105 of them are in the occupied Crimea, and the whereabouts of one more painting are still in question.

Employees of the Kherson Art Museum occasionally recognize the stolen paintings in photos and videos published by Russian media. Just 2 weeks before the museum was robbed , Russian media reported that the museum fund of their country would be replenished by more than a billion rubles. In particular, it was noted that Russian art historians had examined 4 Ukrainian art museums, and the Kherson one was of the greatest value.

Катерина Глушко