The narrative is riddled with distortions and falsehoods: none of the cited artifacts belong to the Ukrainian state.
Pro-Russian online channels are amplifying claims that Ukraine’s priceless cultural heritage is being auctioned off abroad. Among the examples they cite are the Ostrog Bible, a portrait of poet Lesya Ukrainka by Viktor Babentsov, and Ivan Aivazovsky’s Genoese Towers in the Black Sea. Propagandists, leaning on unnamed “sources,” allege that Aivazovsky’s canvas may have entered the UK through the shadow art market.
These articles, replicated verbatim across multiple propaganda platforms, are fraught with inaccuracies, distortions, and outright fabrications.
Take the Ostrog Bible, for example — the first complete edition of the Bible in Church Slavonic, printed by Ivan Fedorov in 1581. Over 350 copies survive today, preserved in libraries throughout Ukraine — including Kyiv, Lviv, Kharkiv, Odesa, Ostroh, and Uzhhorod — as well as in institutions abroad in Russia, Belarus, Poland, the UK, Bulgaria, and elsewhere. The Vernadsky National Library alone holds 18 copies. Some are privately owned, and it was likely one such private copy that sold for £28,000 at a Bonhams auction in 2023.
Secondly, Viktor Babentsov’s 1972 portrait of Lesya Ukrainka, sold at Sotheby’s in November 2025, was not state-owned. The auction listing includes a Soviet export mark, indicating the painting left the country during the USSR era. The relatively modest sale price—between £4,000 and £6,000—and the presence of other Babentsov works in private galleries available on the market contradict claims of “plundering state treasures” propagated by disinformation outlets.
Third, Ivan Aivazovsky’s Genoese Towers in the Black Sea bears no relation to Ukraine. The painting was sold at Christie’s in 2021 during “Russian Art” week and had been held in a private California family collection for four decades prior.
This instance echoes previous disinformation campaigns alleging the “plundering” of Ukrainian cultural artifacts, which have been thoroughly debunked in reports such as Fake: Ukrainian Government Tried to Sell Scythian Gold at Sotheby’s – Bloomberg.
