Berlin - A leading Ukraine museum chief has again refused to return paintings to Germany that disappeared at the end of the Second World War and turned up in Ukraine as trophy art, German media reports said Wednesday.

Despite 68 of the 87 paintings being identified as from Aachen's Suermondt-Ludwig Museum, Simferopol Art Museum in Crimea director Larina Kudryashova ruled out at handing back the artworks.

Instead she has proposed an exchange programme with the German museum, two German newspapers, the Aachener Zeitung and the Aachener Nachrichten, said.

Ukraine art historian Sergei Kot sees the battle between the German and Ukraine art authorities as a test case of the ownership of trophy art that was seized by the Soviet Union after the fall of Nazi Germany at the end of the Second World War.

"All Ukraine's museums are closely watching what happens," Kot said.

The German authorities are at present attempting to negotiate the return of the paintings, which are currently on exhibit at the Simferopol Art Museum.

Kudryashova said she was prepared to consider the paintings to lend the paintings to the Aachen museum in exchange for a large collection from the Suermondt-Ludwig Museum. (dpa)