Museum shows more than 250 Yanukovych items worth "hundreds of millions": there are fakes – photos

On December 23, the National Museum of History of Ukraine opened the exhibition "About Me. The exhibition includes more than 250 items left by the former president Viktor Yanukovych in the Mezhyhirya residence after her escape in February 2014. Among the valuables, there are also fakes, the LIGA.net.

The exhibition will be open to the public from December 24. Director of the National Museum Olena Zemlyana said that the opening of the exhibition is not tied to any dates – the collection was seized by law enforcement and recently transferred to the museum for permanent storage by court order.

"We are currently working on the collection and have decided that we now have the capacity and free space to place these items. Therefore, there is no symbolism in this in terms of dates," she said.

According to Zemlyana, the point of the exhibition is not about any person, but about the usurpation of power and a certain "elite." Regarding the court case, she noted that the state sued the fugitive president, Mezhehirya and all these exhibits were arrested. During this period, the items were stored at the National Art Museum of Ukraine.

After the final court decision on the collection for state revenue, the Ministry of Culture distributed the items to be transferred to the state. A small number of exhibits were also distributed to regional museums. But the art museum and history museums received the most items.

The cost of the exhibits cannot be estimated, the museum director emphasized. They cannot be found at auctions to compare their value.

"We can understand, for example, that one of the vases presented can cost about 15,000 euros... The cross. We still need to establish whether it is authentic, whether the stones are original, but yes, there is a tag. And if you take icons, they are priceless... In total, it's hundreds of millions of hryvnias," the museum director emphasized.

Head of the Department of History of Independent Ukraine Anton Bogdalov noted that the exhibits include 19th-century watches, mostly French. At auctions, such watches cost $10,000-$15,000.

But there are also fakes in the collection.

"The table used by Yanukovych was received by us as a table made of malachite. But in fact, there is a granite slab underneath and a malachite slab on top – it is difficult to say whether it is malachite or just an imitation. They must be thoroughly examined and it must be determined how valuable the exhibits really are," Bogdalov said.

However, according to him, the most valuable items are in the art museum. This is probably due to the fact that he was the first to work with exhibits from Yanukovych's residence, but Bohdalov could not give a precise answer to this question.

Regarding the concept of the exhibition, he noted that the museum had been thinking for a long time about how to show Yanukovych, who is an "extraordinary figure" in the history of Ukraine. He is responsible for the Revolution of Dignity on the Maidan, where he killed about 100 people, and for the outbreak of war in 2014.

"We wanted to show Yanukovych by ridiculing him, which is ironic, given that he is one of the most inept figures we have had in the 21st century. But it's also about the elite, which is slowly disappearing. And those corrupt officials who exist now are not about gilding, but rather about cryptocurrency. This is a reminder exhibition that should ask the question "Who are you?" to the visitor," Bogdalov said.

• In September 2025, Yanukovych failed to lift European sanctions against him: his lawsuit rejected by the EU court.
• on December 16, it became known that Yanukovych finally got 15 years in prison. The Prosecutor General's Office told us how the former president escaped. His movements in Ukraine and Russia in 2014 were coordinated directly with Putin.