Education, agriculture, industry… In a war, no sector is spared. And culture is no exception. According to the latest figures from UNESCO published this Tuesday, February 13, the war in Ukraine has caused the equivalent of 3.5 billion dollars in destruction to the heritage and cultural sector of this country. Worse, the shortfall in entertainment, art and tourism would reach $19 billion.
Figures which swell as the conflict bogs down. Last April, the UN organization for education, science and culture, which is based in Paris, estimated the damage at nearly $2.6 billion, and calculated that losses in tourism, art and entertainment totaled some $14.6 billion.
341 sites damaged
Pharaonic amounts calculated based on the approximately 5,000 sites destroyed since the Russian invasion. 341 cultural sites have been damaged since February 2022, according to UNESCO. There were 248 in April 2023. Among them, 126 religious sites, 150 buildings of historical and/or artistic interest, 31 museums, 19 monuments, and even 14 libraries.
However, significant disparities exist between regions. The cities of Donetsk, Kharkiv, Luhansk and Odessa are the most affected by the destruction of cultural monuments, with a total of 226 sites damaged. UNESCO also lists 39 devastated sites in Kyiv and its surroundings. Unlike Zhytomyr, Sumy, Mykolaiv, Vinnytsya and Dnipro, and Lviv, where the damage was less significant.
Symbolic monuments
The Transfiguration Cathedral in Odessa is one of the buildings damaged by Russian strikes. Symbol of this Ukrainian port city, it was founded more than 200 years ago and destroyed by the Soviets in 1936 before being rebuilt in the early 2000s thanks to donations. But last July, Russian missiles fell on the cathedral. The stained glass windows were blown out, the interior devastated.
“(A) symbol for the entire community” has just been destroyed, deplores Chiara Dezzi Bardeschi, UNESCO representative in Ukraine. Especially since the cathedral was consecrated in 2010 by the Patriarch of the Russian Orthodox Church, Kirill. The building has “religious and spiritual value for the city and for the community” but is no longer accessible, regrets Chiara Dezzi Bardeschi.
Seven cultural sites listed as UNESCO World Heritage
Faced with the “imminent danger” represented by the Russian invasion in February 2022, many voices have been raised in favor of better protection of Ukrainian cultural sites. The last two years have marked the inclusion of new sites as UNESCO world heritage sites in danger. A classification designed “to inform the international community of conditions threatening the very characteristics which allowed the inscription of a property on the World Heritage List”, specifies Unesco.
This is the case for the historic center of Odessa, in May 2023. “The decision to include Odessa on UNESCO’s list of world heritage and world heritage in danger underlines the danger posed to Ukrainian heritage by war of aggression led by Russia since February 24, 2022”, argued Nicolas Rivière, permanent representative of France to the United Nations in New York.
Last September, buildings located in the capital and the city of Lviv were added to the list of endangered heritage, bringing the number of Ukrainian cultural sites on the UNESCO World Heritage list to seven (including three with heritage in danger). Including the Saint Sophia Cathedral in kyiv, or the historic center of Lviv.
The limits of heritage protection in times of war
“It is not the sole responsibility of Ukraine to protect these sites since they are listed as World Heritage. Their protection and preservation constitute an international responsibility,” emphasized the Belgian delegation in a joint declaration with Bulgaria, Greece, Italy and Japan during a meeting of the UNESCO World Heritage Committee in Riyadh last September.
This, while recognizing the limits of the provisions for preserving heritage, also protected by the Hague Convention of 1954. “The classification of Odessa, in January, on the list of Heritage in Danger did not stop the destruction of the historical Center.” In fact, 49 sites have been destroyed or damaged there since the start of the conflict.