According to the latest data, since the beginning of the full-scale war, Russia has destroyed 1390 cultural heritage sites in Ukraine. Who keeps such registers?
The Ministry of Culture and Strategic Communications of Ukraine conducts such analyses. The data is constantly updated. Recently, the Zaporizhzhya Regional Museum of Local Lore was seriously damaged. But the issue is not the number of damages to cultural sites, but the methodology of such a calculation. Because the figures provided by the Ministry of Culture are somewhat different from those used by international organisations, including UNESCO. There, the number of losses is many times lower. First of all, because they have clear criteria for cultural heritage sites.
According to Ukrainian statistics, at least 1,255 monuments were damaged as of the end of December last year, including 125 of national importance. According to the Ministry of Culture, there are national and local heritage sites, historical monuments, architectural monuments, museums, libraries, etc. The fact is that Ukraine counts everything, even a damaged cultural centre in a village, because it is an important centre of a particular community, i.e. an object of cultural infrastructure, if not a monument. As a rule, our registers take into account the information that is public - for example, it was published somewhere that an old church was destroyed. But international institutions count in their own way, they need verification, confirmation of legal status, although at the operational level they do not always have the ability to respond quickly and update their registers. This is the main difference.
Several other registers are maintained by non-governmental organisations, including our Agency for Cultural Sustainability, which I co-founded, and HeMo in Lviv, which is part of our 2022 volunteer initiative, the Heritage Rescue Headquarters. There is also monitoring from our foreign colleagues from Virginia, the Cultural Heritage Monitoring Lab, who have been tracking damaged cultural heritage sites and changes in the cultural and historical landscape in Ukraine via satellite systems since 2014. It is not only about historical buildings, but also about monuments that have been demolished and replaced by new ones by the occupation authorities. There is also a human rights NGO, the Institute for Religious Freedom, which keeps a record of religious buildings damaged by the war, including Orthodox and Catholic churches, synagogues, Muslim mosques, and facilities of other faiths. Today, there are about 700 religious buildings. Unfortunately, the statistics are growing every day. That is, there are a number of lists of losses of cultural and religious infrastructure facilities based on different methods.
Do these lists include objects that are to be dismantled as a result of decolonisation, such as monuments to Pushkin?
The Ukrainian Institute of National Remembrance and NGOs are engaged in this work. Our foreign colleagues also help us keep track of the objects of decolonisation, and vice versa, of Russification in the occupied territories. There is not much information available when it comes to the territories to which Ukraine has no access. Satellite monitoring and operational information from the scene helps to record certain facts of Russian crimes. For example, it is known that the monument to Vasyl Slipak in Donetsk Region was destroyed several times. The first attempts by the Russians to destroy the memorial to our famous opera singer and warrior were unsuccessful, as our military retook the occupied territory and restored the monument, but in July 2022, the enemy did destroy the memorial. It is clear that Russians are demolishing monuments to prominent figures in our history - Taras Shevchenko, Ukrainian heroes, especially those who emerged after 2014, and vice versa - returning those monuments that were dismantled during decommunisation, such as Lenin, and other representatives of the Soviets or the Russian World.
How and when did the history of the creation of the military unit for the protection of cultural heritage, which we finally have in the third year of the war, begin?
It's hard for me to say how much our military command, the Ministry of Defence and the General Staff, have been involved in this issue since the beginning of the Russian-Ukrainian war - at least, I haven't heard any such information. But my colleagues and I have been promoting this issue quite actively at our level since 2014. The topic of preserving cultural heritage in times of crisis became especially relevant after the Maidan. In 2015, I took part in a 4-week training course on first aid for cultural heritage in emergencies in the Netherlands, organised by ICCROM (the International Centre for the Study of the Preservation and Restoration of Cultural Property, whose member states are UNESCO member states - Ed.), the Smithsonian Institution, and the Prince Claus Foundation. The key topic then was risk management and response to threats in the cultural sphere, as well as compliance with the provisions of the 1954 Hague Convention for the Protection of Cultural Property in the Event of Armed Conflict, which, incidentally, Ukraine signed at the time, thereby assuming very clear obligations.
In 2016, the Maydan Museum developed and published a package of methodological materials on the safety of cultural heritage in times of crisis with the support of the Prince Claus Foundation. Among them are playing cards for the military called Protecting Cultural Heritage, created on the basis of a prototype of the UNESCO National Committee in the Netherlands. We adapted them to our context and distributed them in the Armed Forces of Ukraine.
In addition, for several years in a row, I participated in trainings for cultural heritage protection units (CPP-units) of NATO armies, including the United States, the United Kingdom, Poland, and the Netherlands. However, the turning point in this matter was the training of the Smithsonian Institution and the US Army Civil-Military Cooperation and Psychological Operations Command - AMOT (Army Monuments Officer Training) in 2022 in Washington, DC, where six Ukrainians - representatives of the General Staff and the Ministry of Defence - took part. At that time, it was symbolically announced that Ukraine would join the creation of such a unit.
At the Ministry of Culture, we actively raised this issue both before and after 2022. We appealed to the National Security and Defence Council to include cultural heritage as an element of national security in the security strategy. In the first years of the war, as far as I know, the protection of culture looked like a somewhat bizarre priority for our military leadership. And this is understandable. The priority was combat operations, defence of territories from invaders, and assistance to civilians. But step by step, the situation changed, thanks in particular to the statements of our partners' political leaders. I was pleasantly surprised by Joe Biden's words at the 2022 Summit in Tokyo, where he said that the target of Russian aggression is the cultural identity of Ukrainians, so it needs special protection. Yes, it is obvious to everyone that this war is not only about our sovereign territories, but also about our cultural heritage and historical memory. Eventually, this topic became relevant for the leadership of our country, and the Ministry of Culture also began to lobby for the creation of a relevant unit for the protection of cultural heritage.
But the initiative, as I understand it, came from the public?
I think so. At least, no one from the General Staff or the Ministry of Defence asked us, as cultural experts, for help in this matter. And cultural experts are actively involved in the functioning of such units abroad. And various countries were ready to help Ukraine create such a unit. So we were looking for ways to reach decision-makers who have some influence on our top management.
Who among your colleagues contributed to this?
First of all, Kyrylo Kobtsev, Kateryna Chuyeva, Lina Doroshenko, Vitaliy Tytych, Mariya Zadorozhna, Vasyl Rozhko, Vasyl Pavlov, Olha Salo, Dmytro Tsvitnenko and others. The foreign partners were Richard Kurin, Corey Wegner, Brian Daniels, Michael Delacruz, Matthew Pepe, and Tim le Berre.
At the level of the concept proposed by the public sector, what should this unit look like?
We discussed many different options, looking for different forms and methods. In 2023, at the initiative of Gyunduz Mamedov, a lawyer, former Prosecutor General of Crimea and Deputy Prosecutor General of Ukraine, and now a military officer, such a unit was created under the Volunteer Formation of Territorial Community (VFTG). This is a pilot unit, where I was appointed commander, a small unit of one of the Kyiv VFTGs, which, guided by its regulations and orders of the command, carries out expeditionary and educational activities, works to preserve cultural heritage, and tests the model of civil-military cooperation at its level. In particular, they documented damage to cultural infrastructure in Kharkiv, Kherson, Mykolayiv, and Odesa regions.
When developing the concept of this unit, we relied on the experience of similar units in other countries. In reality, these experiences vary widely, depending on traditions, functions, priorities and cultural policies. However, what is common is that members of such units are involved in developing strategies and plans for rapid response in the event of war or a large-scale emergency. This includes training and coordination of military personnel, museum workers, and experts, practicing operations to evacuate or rescue cultural property, and ensuring compliance with international agreements on heritage preservation in times of war. Such units are also involved in addressing the issues of illegal export of cultural property in cooperation with customs and border guard services, police, special services, auctions, etc. The world has developed effective mechanisms, databases, methods and training courses.
It was a shame that Ukraine was losing its chance in this direction. We now have a window of opportunity. This includes attracting foreign financial resources, adopting professional experience, and integrating into global processes. But the main thing is to create the necessary infrastructure for Ukraine to implement the provisions of the 1954 Hague Convention, as this is a very important bonus for us. After all, we can convincingly claim to the whole world, contrary to Russian propaganda, that Ukraine is a civilised European state, that the Ukrainian army is a European, NATO-style army, that it preserves cultural heritage, adheres to international laws of war, and conducts military operations in a completely different way from the barbaric troops of the Muscovites. When Kherson was occupied and the local history and art museums were looted, it was the military from such a unit who should have been the first to deal with the disappearance of cultural property, to ensure that the facts of the lost heritage were documented and to search for the taken collections. There were also requests for the rescue of cultural property on the front line, while civilians had no access to the area, so it was the military who should have been in charge.
Is such a cultural unit a standard story for countries with large armies, for NATO?
No, not all NATO armies have a cultural heritage unit. This is an individual decision of the signatories to the Hague Convention. The creation of such units is undoubtedly a sign of the civilised nature of the country and its army, and an understanding of the importance of protecting cultural heritage in armed conflicts. In Poland, as far as I know, such a unit was created relatively recently. I talked to the head of this unit at one training and they are extremely active, expanding and developing it, and it is a high priority for them. Therefore, the experience of the Poles, rather than the Americans, may be more practical for us.
What about the announced unit of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, has it already been manned?
The process of forming and manning this unit is ongoing. Training programmes are being prepared with the involvement of the non-governmental sector and international experts. I believe that the General Staff should provide details within the framework of public information (LB.ua has sent a request to the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, we are waiting for a response - Ed.)
I wonder if they will cooperate with recruitment centres?
This is an interesting question, because they can select from the already mobilised military specialists in the field of culture, it would be the most logical and effective. But on the other hand, we understand that it is very difficult to pull an experienced artilleryman, mortar man or infantryman from the front line and transfer him to some other unit, it is easier to recruit new people, but with experience. I think then more people would actually mobilise, at least among those who have a specialised education and training.