UNESCO: 274 cultural sites damaged in Ukraine due to Russian invasion

UNESCO has confirmed damage to 274 cultural sites in Ukraine since the beginning of the Russian full-scale invasion.

“As of 26 July 2023, UNESCO has verified damage to 274 sites since 24 February 2022 – 117 religious sites, 27 museums, 98 buildings of historical and/or artistic interest, 19 monuments, 12 libraries, 1 archive,” reads the statement on the UNESCO website.

As noted, the organization is conducting a preliminary damage assessment for cultural properties by cross-checking the reported incidents with multiple credible sources.

UNESCO is also developing, with its partner organizations, a mechanism for independent coordinated assessment of data in Ukraine, including satellite image analysis, in line with provisions of the 1954 Hague Convention for the Protection of Cultural Property in the Event of Armed Conflict.

In the report, the organization provides data on regions in which damage to cultural objects was recorded as a result of the full-scale war unleashed by the Russian Federation in Ukraine.

According to UNESCO, the largest number of such objects were affected in Donetsk (78), Kharkiv (55), Kyiv (38), Luhansk (33), and Chernihiv (17) regions. Also, damage was recorded in Zaporizhzhia and Sumy regions (12 objects each), Odesa and Mykolayiv regions (8 each), Kherson (6), Zhytomyr (3), Vinnytsia (2), Dnipropetrovsk and Lviv regions (one each).

As reported, since the beginning of Russia's full-scale aggression against Ukraine, UNESCO and other international cultural institutions have launched a number of initiatives to protect cultural objects and values, in particular by creating a system of satellite monitoring of objects and historical monuments in Ukraine.

According to the Ministry of Culture and Information Policy of Ukraine, 1,605 objects of cultural infrastructure have been damaged or destroyed as a result of the full-scale invasion.