Minister Tkachenko: Ukraine’s recovery program to involve cultural heritage

The relevant statement was made by Ukrainian Culture and Information Policy Minister Oleksandr Tkachenko during a nationwide telethon, an Ukrinform correspondent reports.

“It is essential that we have managed to convince all our Ukrainian and Western stakeholders that the recovery program should also involve cultural heritage... We are dealing with the largest collections that have been stolen since World War 2, but also with those that have been preserved. This refers to hundreds of thousands of our museum objects that had been evacuated from the cities where there is, so to speak, the front line to safer places,” Tkachenko told.

In his words, all thefts of cultural heritage are documented, including with the help of international experts, in order to track the possible illegal traffic of all museum objects around the world and bring them back.

According to Tkachenko, international partners are assisting Ukraine with the restoration of cultural monuments.

“I can say that Brussels has been recently involved in the restoration of a symbolic object in Kyiv. And there are many such examples. Hundreds, tens of millions of dollars have been invested in the preservation, evacuation, and conservation of some objects so that they will not be destroyed in the future,” Tkachenko noted.

This year, according to the minister, some cultural institutions in Kharkiv, which had been the most affected by bombardments, will begin restoration, as well as some symbolic objects, such as Skovorodynivka, Ivankiv, or Irpin Cultural Center.