THE HAGUE: Dutch police arrested three people after climate activists targeted Johannes Vermeer’s painting “Girl with a Pearl Earring” at the Mauritshuis museum in The Hague on Thursday.
Two people glued themselves to the famed painting and adjoining wall, while another threw an unknown substance, but the artwork was behind glass and undamaged, the Mauritshuis said.
Social media images showed activists wearing “Just Stop Oil” T-shirts and saying “how do you feel,” while museum visitors shouted “shame” and “you’re stupid.”
The attack comes after environmental activists poured tomato soup over Dutch artist Vincent van Gogh’s “Sunflowers” at the National Gallery in London and smeared mashed potato over a Monet painting in Germany.
“Around 2 p.m. (1200 GMT) two people glued themselves to the Girl with a Pearl Earring by Johannes Vermeer,” the Mauritshuis said in a statement to AFP.
“One person glued his head to the painting, which was behind glass, and the other person glued his hand to the green wall next to the painting. A third person threw an unknown substance at the painting.”
The museum added: “We have immediately inspected the painting, which was done by our restorers. Fortunately the painting... was not damaged.”
The painting would return on display “as soon as possible.”
“Art is defenseless and to try and damage it for whichever cause, we strongly condemn it,” the Mauritshuis added.
The Hague police said on Twitter that they had arrested three people in a museum for “public violence against goods.”
Dozens of people were gathered inside the museum waiting for news, while security guards told them not to get too close to the other paintings, an AFP reporter said.
The entrance to the room where the “Girl with a Pearl Earring” normally hangs was blocked off by a large reproduction oil painting and a guard said it would likely be closed for the rest of the day.
Two police vans were parked outside the museum while investigations continued.
Climate activists target ‘Girl with a Pearl Earring’: Dutch museum
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Climate activists target ‘Girl with a Pearl Earring’: Dutch museum
- Two people glued themselves to the famed painting and adjoining wall, while another threw an unknown substance, but the artwork was behind glass and undamaged
- Attack comes after activists poured tomato soup over Vincent van Gogh’s ‘Sunflowers’ at the National Gallery in London and smeared mashed potato over a Monet painting in Germany
Russia slams Western peacekeeping plan for Ukraine
- “The new militarist declarations of the so-called Coalition of the Willing and the Kyiv regime together form a genuine ‘axis of war’,” Zakharova
- She called the plans drafted by Kyiv’s allies “dangerous” and “destructive“
MOSCOW: Russia on Thursday slammed a plan for European peacekeepers to be deployed to Ukraine as “dangerous” and dubbed Kyiv and its allies an “axis of war,” dousing hopes the plan could be a step toward ending the almost four-year-war.
US President Donald Trump has been pushing the warring sides to strike a deal to halt the conflict, running shuttle diplomacy between Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelensky and Russia’s Vladimir Putin in a bid to get an agreement across the line.
An initial 28-point plan which largely adhered to Moscow’s demands was criticized by Kyiv and Europe, and now Russia has slammed the attempts to beef-up protections for Ukraine should an elusive deal be reached.
Ukraine’s allies said they had agreed key security guarantees for Kyiv at a summit in Paris earlier this week, including a peacekeeping force.
But in its first comments since the summit, Moscow said the statements were far away from anything the Kremlin could accept to end its assault.
“The new militarist declarations of the so-called Coalition of the Willing and the Kyiv regime together form a genuine ‘axis of war’,” Russia’s foreign ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said in a statement.
She called the plans drafted by Kyiv’s allies “dangerous” and “destructive.”
The remarks come as Russian strikes plunged hundreds of thousands in Ukraine into darkness, leaving families without heat in below-freezing temperatures — attacks that Zelensky said showed Russia was still set on war.
- ‘Legitimate military targets’ -
European leaders and US envoys announced earlier this week that post-war guarantees for Ukraine would include a US-led monitoring mechanism and a European multinational force to be deployed when the fighting stops.
But Moscow has repeatedly warned that it would not accept any NATO members sending peacekeeping troops to Ukraine.
“All such units and facilities will be considered legitimate military targets for the Russian Armed Forces,” Zakharova said Thursday, repeating a threat previously uttered by Putin.
Zelensky also said Thursday that a bilateral agreement between Kyiv and Washington for US security guarantees was “essentially ready for finalization at the highest level with the President of the United States” following talks between envoys in Paris this week.
Kyiv says legally-binding assurances that its allies would come to its defense are essential to convince Russia not to re-attack if a ceasefire is reached.
But specific details on the guarantees, the European force, and how it would engage have not been made public.
Zelensky said earlier this week he was yet to receive an “unequivocal” answer of what they would do if Russia does attack again after a deal.
Zelensky has also said that the most difficult questions in any settlement — territorial control of the eastern Donbas region and the fate of the Russian-occupied Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant — were still unresolved.
- Russian strikes cut heating -
Ukraine was meanwhile scrambling to restore heating and water to hundreds of thousands of households after a new barrage targeted energy facilities in its Dnipropetrovsk and Zaporizhzhia regions.
“This is truly a national level emergency,” Borys Filatov, mayor of Dnipropetrovsk’s capital Dnipro, said on Telegram.
He announced power was “gradually returning to the hospitals” after the blackouts forced them to run on generators. The city authorities also extended school holidays for children.
About 600,000 households in the region remained cut off from power in Dnipropetrovsk, Ukrainian energy company DTEK said.
In a post on social media, Zelensky said the attacks “clearly don’t indicate that Moscow is reconsidering its priorities.”
In addition to the unrelenting pummelling of Dnipropetrovsk, Russia pressed on with its ground assault on the region, claiming to have taken another village there.
It is not one of the five Ukrainian regions that Moscow claims to have annexed.
