What Makes Culture Crucial for and Integral to Ukraine’s National Security
2025 will be the year of cultural conservation and resilience. It is crucial to make sure no crime against cultural heritage goes unpunished
The Russian Empire has consistently expropriated our history, seeking to eradicate our culture, and with it our self-identity. In the third year of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, awareness has clearly crystallized that culture is a fundamental element to our national security.
The cultural component has proven to be just as important as the military or economic components, since it is through culture that national identity, self-awareness, and people’s resilience are being shaped. It has become obvious that Russia’s war of aggression is pursuing not just territorial expansion, but is also meant to wipe out Ukrainian cultural heritage, language, and self-identity, thus making culture a strategic dimension in this war.
The war has come as a challenge for Ukraine, made us rethink who we are. Our artists and artworkers are among those documenting war crimes, conveying the nation’s pain and hope, inspiring and knitting us together. Their works have already comprised part of our collective memory and of the global dialogue. They communicate to the world our history, struggle and determination to win.
Culture is more than just art. It is the language in which we tell our story. It is a means by which we understand ourselves and our connection to the world. As the renowned American anthropologist Clifford Geertz wrote, culture is the “web of significance” that we weave together. And this web is currently what helps us maintain unity and resist challenges. It is the chain that connects our past to our present and future.
Whilst Russia is endeavoring to get our self-identity erased, every song, every painting, every book proves that we are alive. Museums, theaters, art festivals are not just about our past, but more about our future. Culture is what keeps us alive, inspires us, unites us. It is the source from which we draw strength for the struggle and hope for a better tomorrow.
The war has left lots of monuments of culture demolished, but we will do whatever it takes to get them restored and preserved. Digitizing heritage, fostering the conditions for safeguarding historical monuments are not just about the present. Rather, it is an investment into the future.
Our artworkers have long been speaking on our behalf on international platforms. And this cultural diplomacy is gathering momentum. In times when words are less convincing, art can reach the heart of every man. Through music, cinema, or visual art, we can convey to the world what is difficult to express verbally.
Culture lives within each of us. It is in our language, in our traditions, in the way we support each other. When we read Ukrainian books, listen to music, or visit exhibitions, we become integral to this struggle. We preserve what they are seeking to destroy.
Each of us is a keeper of culture, and making it even stronger is our shared responsibility.
2025 will be a year of preservation and resilience.
We have not to just protect what already exists, but also create something new. We will work to make culture accessible to every Ukrainian wherever they are. We want Ukrainian music to sound in every home, want every child to know our history, want our distinctiveness to be talked about in every corner of the world.
These factors are all motivating to make sure the norm saying that “Culture is integral to our national security” is enshrined in our national legislation in 2025.
GENOCIDE
The Russian Federation is pursuing a policy of the full and irreversible “integration of new territories into the Russian Federation” through partial extermination of Ukrainians as a nation and their Russification. To this end, the aggressor country is purposefully destroying and plundering Ukraine’s cultural heritage.
In pursuance of this policy, the Russian Federation lays out and conducts unlawful archaeological excavations, destroying the cultural layer, removing cultural values, and taking them out of the currently occupied Ukrainian territories.
Just think about it: we are not talking about thousands or even tens of thousands, but about two million museum exhibits that remained in the currently occupied territories.
Such actions are directed towards appropriating Ukrainian cultural values and forging a particular socio-cultural space that denies Ukraine’s historical presence in the currently occupied territories by way of placing an emphasis on their “exclusively Russian past,” which contributes to the effectiveness of the Russian Federation’s intentions to forcibly assimilate the local population.
Such a policy will effectively complicate the future process of reinstating and restoring the country's integrity.
In such a scenario, the effort being done by Ukraine to document and investigate the crimes perpetrated by Russia is crucial for effective safeguarding of cultural heritage and securing the processes of liability attribution, damage compensation, and ensuring consistency and sustainability.
These processes furthermore require the involvement of a multitude of actors - law enforcement agencies, security services, analysts, experts, academic community members, human rights crusaders, etc. – the resources and time, which Ukraine can hardly afford at the time of the armed conflict. That being said, the issue of applying the sanctions tool is assuming particular relevance.
SANCTIONS
With the imposition of sanctions, a preventive mechanismwill be put in place to preclude further offences.
Sanctioning cultural sector representatives of the occupying state will create an international precedent for the protection of cultural heritage and contribute to the effectiveness of international control over the movement of cultural values.
Personal sanctions imposed on Russian scholars, researchers and archaeologists will have a serious adverse impact on their professional future. This may include a ban on attending international scientific conferences and symposia, termination of scientific cooperation with international institutions, and the inability to publish research results in international scientific journals.
Moreover, perpetrators will face restrictions on access to international grants and funding, along with a ban on entry to countries favoring Ukraine's sanctions policy.
That being so, Russian scholars and researchers will be unable to become effectively instrumental in soft power projection being aggressively exercised by the Russian Federation both in and outside of Ukraine in a bid to justify teritorial concessions by proving a connection between the Russian Federation and its occupied territories.
Sanctions policy will become not just a punishment tool, but also a mechanism for establishing a new international practice of safeguarding cultural values. This will create an effective leverage over perpetrators and prevent further theft of Ukraine’s cultural heritage by establishing clear-cut boundaries of liability and identifying consequences for their violation.
OBJECTIVES TO BE ACHIEVED
It is critical to make sure no crime against cultural heritage goes unpunished. This takes documenting crimes, imposing sanctions on perpetrators while simultaneously tracking down stolen assets across the globe and conducting criminal investigations in different jurisdictions.
Mykola Tochytsky, Ukraine’s Minister of Culture and Strategic Communications