The document seen by EUobserver, from the European Commission, states that “the cultural property of Kherson Fine Arts Museum has been removed illegally from the museum between October and November 2022, and taken to Simferopol in illegally-annexed Crimea.”

The stolen items “currently” are in “the Central Museum of Taurida, Simferopol,” the report noted.

One of the Russian stooges on the draft-blacklist “voluntarily and intentionally helped the Russian security forces empty the [Kherson Regional] “Museum of its artifacts”, it added.

Another one “discovered artworks from the Kuindzhi Art Museum in Mariupol, and gave them willingly to the Russian authorities who then facilitated their transfer the Local History Museum. [Russian-occupied] Donetsk”, charged the EU.

Hard power is also part of Russia’s cultural war against Ukraine.

UNESCO, based in Paris, said that 254 cultural sites in Ukraine were damaged by the invasion, including 109 churches, 22 museums and 91 historical buildings.

Andriy Saliuk told EUobserver in 2013 that “the Muscovite Soldiers are bringing the Russkiy Mir”.

“They want our culture destroyed and replaced with theirs.” They did that in 1914, 1939, 1944 – they tried to steal or destroy our heritage.

Russkiy mir is Kremlin propaganda that Russia is an anti-Western civilisation.

The draft EU sanctions stated that the war is a Russian campaign aimed at indoctrinating kidnapped Ukrainian youth, numbering in the thousands, with this kind of mentality.

They proposed blacklisting 22 Russian officials who committed crimes against Ukrainian children.

The EU reported that in one case a 41-year-old Chechen special police chief had been put in charge of “forced military training and re-education of Ukrainian children”, at “camps located in the Chechen Republic”.

It added that “one particular indoctrination center forces Ukrainian teenagers into a ‘young-fighter course’ which teaches Ukrainian kids how to operate military equipment.”

The EU also stated that in another case, children from the Oleshki School for Disabled Children located in Ukraine were transported via “illegal transport… to the illegally annexed Crimea”.

In March, the International Criminal Court in The Hague issued a warrant of arrest for Russian President Vladimir Putin over the kidnappings.

The latest EU sanctions will increase pressure on ICC members to arrest him if he flies there.

On Wednesday, 10 May, the EU ambassadors will have their first discussion on the new blacklist at Brussels.

The draft also names obscure Putin advisors, military leaders, nomenklatura family members, and two small business tycoons.

One of these, Artyom Uss, recently made headlines in Italy, when he cut off his electronic-monitoring bracelet while under house arrest in Milan and fled to Russia, while being held pending potential extradition to the US on smuggling and money-laundering charges.

The names of the new Russians will be added to the list of over 1,600 Russians and entities that the EU has already compiled in the last year of war.

Along with previous economic embargoes, the upcoming 11th EU round of sanctions will also tighten Russian access to high tech weapons components.

The EU draft sanctions revealed that, if Europe hoped that soft power, such as the ICC or international law, might help rein Putin’s behavior, Russia was also pushing against this front.

‘WarGonzo’

The EU Commission has proposed adding 12 more propagandists on the blacklist to stop the Kremlin from spreading lies about the war.

These included Sergey Karaganov – a distinguished Russian scholar still loved by some in Western countries – for “claiming the West was willing to destroy Russia, and that military actions were aimed at denazifying Ukraine”.

The group also included TV executives, and a blogger called “WarGonzo”, who “disseminated false information about Nato biological laboratories at Mariupol”.

The EU plans to add three additional Kremlin controlled TV channels to the broadcast ban that covers all of Europe.

The draft stated that the Oriental Review, RT Balkan and Tsargrad broadcasters “engaged in a systemic, international campaign of manipulation of media and distortion of fact,”

The commission proposal warned that Russian propaganda “has repeatedly targeted European political parties and civil society, especially during election seasons, as well asylum seekers, Russian ethnic minority groups, gender minorities and other targets,”

It also indicated that the Russian diaspora was being weaponised in Europe.

It proposed blacklisting the Moscow-based Foundation for Support and Protection of the Rights of Compatriots Abroad.

The EU Commission noted that the director of the foundation said it was “a unique structure of Russia’s Soft Power” at a January 2022 meeting.

The draft sanctions stated that “the foundation, in line Kremlin policy, uses unfounded accusations of Nazism and Russophobia and massive persecution of Russian speaking people to create instability and divide in many countries neighbouring Russia.”