More than 1,000 cultural sites in Ukraine destroyed - minister

Ukraine’s Minister of Culture and Information Policy Oleksandr Tkachenko said this in his speech at the annual forum "Creative Ukraine," according to an Ukrinform correspondent.

"Over a thousand sites of the cultural sphere. This figure includes all the infrastructure. These are mostly libraries and clubs, as you understand, but among them there is an extremely large number of cultural heritage sites that are either damaged or completely destroyed. We face an extremely big challenge as to what to do," Tkachenko said.

He once again thanked international partners who support Ukraine in the cultural sphere for their help. “What’s more, unlike other spheres, here connections work horizontally very actively. It’s institution to institution, it’s sphere to sphere, so it’s very encouraging to use these horizontal connections, because the aid there during the war reached tens of millions euros. And it comes in. It comes in all the time," Tkachenko added.

He also drew attention to the main challenges for Ukraine in the area for which he is responsible. The issue concerns the curtailment of activities and the fall of production in the field of creative industries, the outflow of talent and deprofessionalization, because people are forced to look for other work. Inflation, the resource crisis and the limited capacity of the export potential will also be a problem, Tkachenko said.