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After a year of war in Ukraine, what is the situation of Ukrainian heritage? In all wars, the occupier’s strategy is always to target art venues to destroy the country’s cultural identity, even more so in Ukraine, which has been struggling since the start of the war to re-emerge its own identity. Unesco, the United Nations agency for Education, Science and Culture, is on hand to provide aid and assistance, list and protect what can be.
At least 240 cultural sites have been destroyed or damaged in Ukraine. A tally verified by satellite imagery. Krista Pikkat, Director of Culture and Emergencies at Unesco: ” These include libraries, museums, theatres, but also buildings that have cultural or historical value, such as religious sites. »
Since the beginning of the Russian invasion, bombardments, thefts, looting, destruction and illicit trafficking have multiplied. It is necessary to protect, but above all to inventory, to document all that exists, an essential inventory of fixtures for the reconstruction and the future restitutions. Crates, tarpaulins, scanner, photocopier and above all electric generators are essential for the safety of the premises and conservation.
Chiara Dezzi Bardeschi heads the UNESCO office in kyiv. Accustomed to war zones, she insists on the importance of places of culture for communities. ” The Khanenko Museum, for example, is a museum that has suffered a lot. It is emptied of its collection of objects, but it continues to organize tours of the building. And there is a great demand from the public. I saw many young people, many families. »
In the occupied territories, Russian martial law has legalized the evacuation of Ukrainian cultural property. In Kherson, Russian troops took away almost all of the collections depicting the history of the city
► The list of 240 sites damaged since February 24, 2022