Russians caused damage to Ukrainian culture to the tune of 3.5 billion dollars – UNESCO
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In almost two full years of full-scale war, Russia caused damage to Ukrainian culture totaling $3.5 billion. Damage caused by the Russian Federation in 2023 increased by 40% compared to last year and totaled 341 cultural objects against 248 objects in 2023, according to UNESCO calculations.
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The head of the UNESCO representative office in Ukraine told about this during the press briefing Chiara Dezzi Bardeschi and Director of UNESCO’s Department for Culture and Emergencies Christa Piccat.
Objects in Kyiv, Lviv and Odesa were damaged. Also, many cultural monuments from the East of Ukraine and near-front areas were damaged as a result of shelling and direct actions of the Russians.
| UNESCO report on damaged monuments in 2022. Photo: UNOSAT. |
As Krista Piccat emphasized, the organization is considering damage to 341 cultural objects in Ukraine as a result of Russia’s actions. Although, she admitted, the number of war-damaged monuments may be much higher.
According to her, at the time of the invasion of Russia and the territory of Ukraine, the Ministry of Culture and Information Policy and UNESCO did not have databases with all cultural objects in the country. This highlighted the gaps in the work on the protection of cultural heritage and forced to review the methods of documenting and preserving information about cultural objects.
Currently, the state of the monuments is checked with the help of satellite images, as well as researched through cross-checking by reliable UNESCO sources.
During the two years of the war, the sphere of culture together with tourism lost about 19.5 billion dollars. Only the capital of Ukraine accounts for 10 billion of this income.
“Damages only continue to grow, as do the needs to restore the cultural sector of Ukraine“, said Krista Piccat.
It will take about 10 years and 9 billion dollars to rebuild all cultural and historical sites in Ukraine after a full-scale invasion.
“We are concerned about what is currently happening in Ukraine, so the implementation of measures to support creative industries and international solidarity are very important“, added Chiara Dezzi Bardeschi.
As representatives of UNESCO noted, in 2 years the organization attracted about 66 million dollars in order to support the sphere of culture, education and journalism in Ukraine.
UNESCO’s work in Ukraine
In November 2023, Ukraine joined the UNESCO World Heritage Committee. This allows us to open up new possibilities for the implementation of the Convention. In particular, decision-making regarding the use of the World Heritage Fund and the inclusion of objects in the List of World Heritage and the List of World Heritage in Danger.
Ukraine ratified the Convention on the Protection of World Cultural and Natural Heritage in 1988.
Also, in the fall of 2023, UNESCO added 20 objects of cultural heritage of Ukraine to the International List of Cultural Values under enhanced protection. Most of them have already been included in the UNESCO World Heritage List, not including the monuments in the temporarily occupied territories.
UNESCO missions periodically operate in Ukraine. In particular, in Chernihiv, Ukrainian and foreign experts are assessing the damage to cultural heritage sites caused by Russian missile attacks during the Russian army’s attack on the city and occupation of a part of Chernihiv region.
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As of August 2023, UNESCO recorded the most damage to cultural objects in Donetsk (78 objects), Kharkiv (55 objects), Kyiv (38 objects), Luhansk (33 objects) and Chernihiv regions (17). There is also damage in Zaporizhia and Sumy (12 objects each), Odesa and Mykolaiv (8 each), Kherson (6), Zhytomyr (3), Vinnytsia (2) and Dnipropetrovsk and Lviv regions (1 each).
UNESCO – an international organization, part of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, contributes to the strengthening of peace and security, thanks to the development and support in the field of education, science, culture and journalism.
UNESCO includes 194 member states. The headquarters of the organization is located in Paris, and the representative offices in 54 countries of the world, its General Director is Audrey Azoulay.
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