On February 23, on the eve of the first anniversary of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, at the very moment when Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez, traveling to Kiev, promised President Volodymyr Zelensky to support the entry of his country in the European Union, Rima Abdul Malak meditated on the deserted Maïdan square, facing a bed of small Ukrainian flags symbolizing the dead.
After a tribute to BFM-TV journalist Frédéric Leclerc-Imhoff, who died covering the conflict and whose name will adorn a room in the media library of the French Institute in Kiev, the French Minister of Culture immersed herself in the pathos of War Museum, where identically reconstructed shelters call for gravity.
Three days after the lightning visit of the American president, Joe Biden, to his Ukrainian counterpart to assure him of his military support, it is a symbol of a completely different nature that France wished to address. Rima Abdul Malak came to respond to the Ukrainians’ thirst for art, amplified after twelve months of bloody conflict.
In the Falcon which landed in Rzeszow, on the Polish-Ukrainian border, she took a small delegation led by night train to Kiev station, in the icy early morning. To her joined the actresses Carole Bouquet and Anaïs Demoustier, just on the eve of the Cesar ceremony. The writer Jonathan Littell came to bring his fine knowledge of the region and the war. And, because there are works to protect, Laurence des Cars, president of the Louvre, completed the team, alongside Valéry Freland, executive director of Aliph, the international alliance created on the initiative of the France for the preservation of heritage in war zones, which disbursed 4 million dollars (3.77 million euros) in aid to damaged Ukrainian sites.
468 cultural sites damaged or destroyed
For months, the Ukrainian Minister of Culture, Oleksandr Tkachenko, had demanded this trip. “The most essential thing for us is weapons, especially combat aircraft, indicates to Monde this relaxed politician, in jeans and a white sweatshirt. But we must also save our identity and we need allies in this field. » Because the conflict is not played out exclusively on the military front. Russia is working to damage or erase all traces of a culture and a language that Ukraine has been reclaiming since 2014.
Unesco has thus identified 240 sites damaged since February 24, 2022 – a list that is growing every week. The Ukrainian Ministry of Culture draws up an even darker conclusion: 468 cultural sites would be damaged or destroyed, including 35 museums. Looting also increased, especially in Kherson, where Russian troops took away almost all of the city’s art museum collections, as well as inventory records. “We need France to digitize the some 12 million works kept by our museums”, insists Oleksandr Tkachenko, supported by the first lady, Olena Zelenska, who made an appearance during the day, at the Kiev municipal library.
You have 52.66% of this article left to read. The following is for subscribers only.