The Lithuanian curators working to protect paintings from Putin.
Foreign Policy
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Nine months after the beginning of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Lithuanian museum curator Skaistis Mikulionis finally saw an opportunity to evacuate two Dutch masterpieces from the Odesa Museum of Western and Eastern Art. Before the war began, Mikulionis had arranged to exhibit the artwork in Lithuania, and he was not going to let the war alter his plans. With Odesa under regular bombardment, the risky operation had a crucial second objective: Keep the paintings safe until they could be returned home. So as many Ukrainians were fleeing the country, Mikulionis headed toward the front lines to rescue Frans Hals’ vividly personal portraits of the evangelists Luke and Matthew.
“Only idiots aren’t afraid,” said the curator, “but it is simply our duty to help.”
A selfie taken inside a vehicle showing three men. Two men in the foreground wear military camouflage uniforms and green berets. A man in a plain t-shirt sitting in the back seat smiles and raises two fingers in a peace sign.
Two volunteer riflemen drive Skaistis Mikulionis and paintings from Ukraine to Lithuania in a special museum transportation vehicle on Aug. 27, 2024. Courtesy of Skaistis Mikulionis/Lithuanian National Museum of Art
Since the start of the war, Lithuania, a small Baltic country that borders Belarus and the Russian exclave of Kaliningrad, has been evacuating works of art from Ukraine. The items are kept in safe facilities of the Lithuanian National Museum of Art, shown to the public at exhibitions, and, if needed, restored by first-class professionals. According to the Ukrainian government, Russia has looted over 35,000 museum items and currently controls 2.1 million more in its occupied territories. Lithuania, which has its own history of being occupied by both imperial Russia and the Soviet Union, is also planning a security protocol to safeguard its own art in the event of another invasion.
The Frans Hals evacuation was the first of a couple of dozen trips Mikulionis has made to Ukraine since 2022. “I can’t even remember the exact number,” he told Foreign Policy. So far, his efforts have led to the evacuation of over 1,500 artworks and the production of 20 exhibits in Lithuania. Mikulionis describes it as a joint endeavor involving over 80 Lithuanian museum workers, and dozens of Ukrainian art specialists and professional brokers who volunteered their time.
A man wearing white gloves stands in an art gallery holding a large, vertically framed painting that depicts red flowers in a blue vase flanked by two yellow lions. Another framed painting leans against the wall in the background.
Mikulionis carries a painting by Maria Prymachenko at the Borys Voznytsky Lviv National Art Gallery in Ukraine on Aug. 25, 2024. Courtesy of Skaistis Mikulionis/Lithuanian National Museum of Art
Even without a war, moving art is a heavily regulated process that requires navigating a long bureaucratic net of contracts and insurance. It starts with an agreement between two institutions, followed by customs clearances, police escorts, insurance agreements, and the presence of professionals from both sides at the pick-up and drop-off points.
In a territory bombed daily, safety becomes an even bigger concern. For this reason, Mikulionis has been accompanied in his trips by the Riflemen’s Union, a volunteer paramilitary organization backed by the Lithuanian government. The union’s over 19,000 members support state institutions in peacetime and train to be ready in the event of invasion. During the art evacuation, they were tasked with escorting Mikulionis and the artwork. To do so, they drove a specialized van, with air-ride suspension and temperature and humidity control, across three countries.
In Ukraine, once Mikulionis and his team took possession of the artworks, they were escorted at all times by the national police until they reached the border. Customs officers then checked all the documentation and let them into Poland, where the Lithuanian Embassy in Warsaw had ensured that the trip could continue without delay. Finally, at the border with Lithuania, armed riflemen and museum workers waited to accompany the convoy for the last few miles until it reached Vilnius. There, the crates were unloaded at museum facilities, acclimatized for 24 hours, and opened in front of Ukrainian representatives before the final paperwork was signed.
Firefighters in a raised crane platform work to extinguish a fire near a small golden dome on the side of an ornate, white stone church. The exterior walls of the building are heavily decorated with stone carvings and feature multiple arched niches containing painted religious icons. Thick smoke rises from behind the dome.
Firefighters check the roof of the Assumption Cathedral of the Kyiv Pechersk Lavra after an attack overnight on June 15. The 11th century historical cathedral was significantly damaged in the attack. Paula Bronstein/Getty Images
In June, a Russian attack on Kyiv severely damaged the millennium-old Pechersk Lavra monastery complex, a UNESCO World Heritage site. The waves of drones and missiles killed five people and hit the Dormition Cathedral, in what Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky called “one of Russia’s most serious crimes against Christian culture to date.”
UNESCO has independently verified the damage to 540 Ukrainian cultural sites, including 155 religious ones and 43 museums. One of the victims of the early days of the war was the Ivankiv Local History Museum, which housed over 20 paintings by the legendary Ukrainian artist Maria Prymachenko. A rural, self-taught artist, Prymachenko’s colorful folk paintings won her wide acclaim: Picasso called her an “artistic miracle” and UNESCO declared 2009 the year of Prymachenko. When the Ivankiv museum was bombed, neighbors reportedly broke into the burning building and carried out several paintings before the ceiling collapsed. But they could not rescue all of them.
Almost two years ago, Mikulionis was tasked with what he considers one of his most significant missions: evacuating another Prymachenko collection. “She is one of the symbols of Ukraine,” said the curator. Originally stored in the Zaporizhzhia Regional Museum of Art, near the war’s front line, the 100-painting collection was moved by the Ukrainians to Lviv very early on. After an inspection, the Lithuanian team realized that 15 of the paintings had been damaged but could still be restored.
The Pranas Gudynas Conservation Center, also part of the Lithuanian National Museum of Art, took on the restoration. The center’s experts are some of the best in the region, but Prymachenko’s non-traditional materials and techniques still posed a challenge. Prymachenko used a modified watercolor paint known as gouache, a medium that has not been widely studied for restoration. The center has now acquired new machinery for the restoration, and the paintings are waiting to be returned to their original state.
Alongside Ukrainian paintings, Lithuania is also hosting Ukrainian restorers. There were 27 in 2025, and dozens more will arrive this year. For a few weeks, trainees get a crash course on state-of-the-art techniques and machines that are less available in Ukraine. Ingrida Bagociuniene, for example, has been teaching Ukrainian restorers how to tackle gold-coated items. “Ukraine has a lot of these kinds of objects, but they don’t have the people to restore them,” she said. As Ukrainian restorers gain new skills, they also build professional relationships and friendships, and in many cases have continued to discuss techniques and challenges over phone and email.
A low-angle exterior shot of a light-colored, multi-story historical building with the text "VILNIAUS PAVEIKSLŲ GALERIJA" written across the facade. A Ukrainian flag flies from a window, and a blurred silhouette of a person walks past in the foreground.
The Vilnius Picture Gallery, one of nine exhibition centers that the Lithuanian National Museum of Art operates across the country, on March 18, 2026. Samuel Wands for Foreign Policy
The war in Ukraine wasn’t the first time Mikulionis had worked to safeguard art against a Putin aggression. In 2008, he jumped into a plane to evacuate artwork by Niko Pirosmani from Georgia. In 2020, after the Crimean annexation but before the full-scale war, Lithuania and Ukraine collaborated on an exhibit entitled “Civilisations of Ukraine.” Over 80 artifacts from the collection of the National Museum of the History of Ukraine were sent to be displayed in Lithuania. For Mikulionis, it was an effort to remind the world of the millennia-old history of the region, from the Bronze Age to the 2013 Euromaidan protests. “When Putin’s imperial Russia began denying the existence of Ukrainian civilization,” he said, “the exhibition showed that there were many civilizations in the territory of Ukraine, and they are very ancient, with a very dignified, complex, and beautiful history.”
Lithuania also has its own art to worry about. On Lithuanian Independence Restoration Day, the Riflemen swore in new recruits. After carrying a massive Ukrainian flag across Independence Square in Vilnius, Colonel Linas Idzelis told Foreign Policy, “We live next to a volcano.”
A member of the European Union and NATO, Lithuania remains prepared for “Day X,” or the hypothetical start of a Russian invasion. The Lithuanian government offers civilian preparedness courses, including first aid workshops and drone-flying courses for children as young as 10. The Riflemen’s Union would join the Lithuanian military in its efforts to protect the country if a war erupts.
An outdoor display with two Ukrainian flags hanging on a wire fence, one signed with handwritten text and the other featuring a military emblem. On the ground are pieces of shrapnel, a metal ammunition box, spent shell casings, and a round sign with a portrait crossed out by a red line.
A stand shows support for Ukraine at a street market in Kaunas, Lithuania’s second-largest city, on March 15. Pau Torres Pagès for Foreign Policy
Learning from the Ukrainian experience, the Lithuanian Ministry of Culture has come up with an emergency evacuation plan for its own artwork. They fear looting similar to what the country experienced in the tsarist and Soviet eras. “There will be no painting; nothing,” said Idzelis of a possible invasion. “[The Russians] are taking everything.”
Of the over 250,000 art objects held by the Lithuanian National Museum of Art, 3,000 are on the “diamond list” for immediate evacuation. Museum director Arunas Gelunas and an expert committee had to decide which works made the cut. Gelunas told Foreign Policy that preparing this classified list was a “very painful” process that involved discussing what artworks would be most valuable for the future generations of Lithuanians.
In September 2024, the museum system carried out a drill. At 2 p.m., Gelunas received a call from the Ministry of Culture informing him of the start of the exercise. He then had to contact the directors of the institution’s centers across the country, who, in turn, informed staff. Art specialists rapidly located the diamond-designated artworks and had between two and three hours to safely store them in crates, ready for transportation. Some of the works were located in storage, but others had to be carefully taken down from exhibition spaces and unframed. Then, they were carried to an undisclosed location where, in a real conflict, they would be transported to safe spaces abroad. Gelunas is confident of the results. “I would say we were 70 to 80 percent successful,” he told Foreign Policy.
A woman stands in a dimly lit museum gallery next to a large, ornate golden frame containing an oval painting of a young woman in light-colored robes holding a small candle or bowl.
Dalia Kaladinskienė, a guide at the Vilnius Picture Gallery who is learning Ukrainian to assist visitors from that country, poses next to one of the most precious paintings in the collection, Wincenty Sleńdziński’s ‘Priestess’ in Vilnius on March 18. Pau Torres Pagès for Foreign Policy
After spending two years in Berlin, the two Frans Hals paintings just returned to Vilnius. In August, the masterpieces will be exhibited once again at the Radvila Palace Museum. The Pranas Gudynas Center is still working meticulously to restore 15 of the Prymachenko paintings, while the other ones remain safely stored in the facilities of the Lithuanian National Museum of Art, at least until December of this year.
Across Europe, the clock is ticking for the evacuated artwork. Ukrainian law only allows for exported works to remain out of the country for up to four years—a principle conceived for exhibitions or restoration, not for wartime evacuation. According to Olha Sahaidak, a Ukrainian cultural policy expert, this is a holdover from Soviet legislation that needs to change. Sahaidak was one of the first professionals to help broker an evacuation deal and sent a Ukrainian collection to the Louvre. By 2024, when it was clear that the war would last longer than expected, she was part of a group of experts that recommended allowing artwork to remain abroad when martial law was declared. Their proposal was introduced as a draft law to the Ukrainian parliament this January.
A group of people gather in a large concrete room with overhead pipes, working around several large wooden shipping crates marked with handling symbols. Colorful framed paintings lean against the back wall.
Museum workers open crates containing 100 Prymachenko paintings at the Pranas Gudynas Centre in Vilnius on Aug. 29, 2024. Courtesy of Skaistis Mikulionis/Lithuanian National Museum of Art
Many of Ukraine’s first art evacuations took place between 2023 and 2024. Now, museum workers are urging legislators to pass this new law before the four-year deadline arrives. Sahaidak said that there is consensus among politicians and museum directors, but the legislature is consumed with other war-related priorities. For Sahaidak and others, though, having the country’s heritage exhibited and stored across the continent has a strategic value of its own. “It’s about safekeeping,” she said, “but it’s also part of our cultural diplomacy.”
Now Sahaidak hopes for a vote by mid-July. Otherwise, Mikulionis and other European curators might have to start preparing for the return of precious artwork to an active war zone.
The reporting for this article was supported by GlobalBeat, the international reporting project of New York University.
