A new exhibition has opened in Kyiv’s National Museum of the History of Ukraine in World War II (Museum of War).
Titled ‘Lend-Lease: Reload’, the exhibit is devoted to the history of military and economic cooperation between the countries of the anti-Hitler coalition, and the present day western alliance against Russia. The installations testify to the continuity of the traditions of mutual assistance of democratic nations in the fight against aggressive dictatorships, and also sets out to refute the Moscow-pushed myth that the Lend-Lease program was insignificant in achieving victory over Nazism.
A 1944 poster depicting Adolf Hitler stands beside artwork by Anton Lohov, depicting President Putin. Exposition Lend Lease (Photo by Aleksandra Klitina).
Introduced by the United States of America during the Second World War, the Lend-Lease program became one of the decisive factors in the victory of the Allied coalition in the middle of the last century.
On May 9, 2022, US President Joseph Biden followed in the footsteps of President Roosevelt, and signed the Lend-Lease Act to the Defense the Democracy of Ukraine. This legal action has become a powerful signal to the world community that the US government supports the Ukrainian Armed Forces and considers the Russian invasion the biggest threat to world order since World War II.
Oleksandr Tkachenko, Minister of Culture and Information Policy of Ukraine with artist Anton Lohov (Photo credit: Anton Lohov).
In addition to items from the collections of the National Museum of the History of Ukraine in World War II, the National Archives and Records Administration (USA), and the Library of Congress (USA), the exhibition presents artifacts provided by the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine, as well as documents from open sources covering the periods 1941-1945 and 2021-2022.
A Javelin supplied by the US, which destroyed a Russian tank on June 17. (Photo by Aleksandra Klitina).
The exhibits reflect the history of the Second World War and the ongoing struggle of the Ukrainian people for independence and state sovereignty. A significant number of artifacts contained within the exhibition have been made public for the first time.
The fragment of US flag burned by Russians and found in Irpin. (Photo by Aleksandra Klitina).
The heart of the exposition is a fragment of a war-burnt US flag. An American combatant found this flag with the call sign Rain Man while fighting on the road near Irpin (Kyiv Region). Since then, he carried the flag and eventually transferred it to the Museum’s collection.
Lend-Lease: Reload runs until August 20, and has so far attracted a large number of visitors from across Ukraine.
