‘Just the way the Nazis did’: Evidence suggests Russians are stealing art from Ukraine on a World War II scale

Last fall, Ukrainian troops were closing in on Kherson, rolling back Russian forces who had seized the city after Moscow launched its invasion of Ukraine.

At Kherson’s Regional Art Museum, a team of armed Russians in civilian clothes arrived along with several large trucks and buses. Over five days, they hauled away more than 11,000 pieces of art, including paintings, sculptures, graphics and other works from Ukraine and around the world, said Alina Dotsenko, the director of the museum.

“It was obvious that it was all planned. The decision to loot the museum was not made on the spot,” Dotsenko said. “It was all carefully planned.”

The theft, verified by human rights monitors and independent scholars, was not an isolated incident.

Read the full report from NBC News.