Ukrainian officials said on Saturday that over 250 cultural institutions have been "damaged or destroyed" and thousands of artifacts looted since Russia launched its invasion on Feb. 24,

Among the items Putin's forces are accused of stealing are ancient Scythian gold objects from "one of the largest and most expensive collections in Ukraine," in the Russian-occupied Melitopol, Zaporizhzhia, said the southeastern city's mayor, Ivan Fedorov.

The Scythian empire gold dated from the 4 century B.C. and was extracted by a man in a white coat with "long tweezers and special gloves," who raided boxes stored in the cellar of a Melitopol museum, accompanied by a squad of armed Russian soldiers. Scythian gold has enormous symbolic value in Ukraine. Other collections of the artifacts had been stored in vaults in the capital, Kyiv, before the war broke out.

Mariupol City Council officials announced this week that Russian forces had stolen "more than 2,000 unique exhibits" from the besieged port city's museums — including medals, "a unique handwritten Torah scroll" and the "Gospel of 1811 made by the Venetian printing house for the Greeks of Mariupol." On Saturday, Ukrainian officials said that more than 250 cultural institutions had been damaged or destroyed.