Along with soldiers, civilians and even animals, along with road and industrial infrastructure, the death tolls of the Russian invasion include the complete or partial destruction of dozens of heritage sites in Ukraine.
“While UNESCO relies on its long experience of conflicts, we are here in a situation on an unprecedented scale in recent European history”, summarizes in writing to the To have to Lazare Eloundou Assomo, director of the UN body’s World Heritage Centre.
Earlier this month, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky spoke of 200 heritage sites hit or destroyed since the start of the war. As of May 16, UNESCO’s report establishes that 130 cultural places have been partially or totally damaged, including around sixty religious buildings (some in wood dating from the 16thand century), around twenty major sites, around fifteen monuments and more than ten museums.
“Our teams work on the basis of reports, mostly provided by the Ukrainian authorities, which are then cross-checked with multiple reliable sources: satellite images, partner organizations in the field, international press agencies, etc., explains Mr. Eloundou Asomo. However, this is only a preliminary assessment of the damage, which will necessarily have to be supplemented by a field mission when the situation allows it, so that we have the most precise possible analysis of the level of damage. »
world heritage
UNESCO publishes at the beginning of each week an update of Ukrainian cultural property whose sad fate its experts have been able to confirm. The list is available on the UN agency’s website.
The attacks notably pulverized the 1902 building of the Mariupol Museum of Art dedicated to the Ukrainian painter Arkhip Kuïndji (1841-1910). The collection of 650 canvases, 950 drawings and 150 sculptures by this artist had been evacuated and put under cover, but other works that remained in the establishment are lost forever. President Zelensky claimed that 2000 works were stolen by Russian soldiers in the city of Mariupol alone.
Some cultural targets seem to be chosen on purpose. The Skovoroda Museum, on the outskirts of Kharkiv, far from any military objective, was shelled. The poet and philosopher Gregory Skovoroda (1722-1794) is considered one of the cultural fathers of the Ukrainian nation.
The deliberate burning of the museum of local history in the small town of Ivankiva destroyed 25 works by folk artist Maria Prymachenko (1908-1997) at the same time. The invading army also bombed the Babi Yar memorial, where tens of thousands of Jews were murdered by the Nazis in 1941.
We are here in a situation of unprecedented magnitude in recent European history
On the other hand, until now, no degradation has been reported on the Ukrainian sites inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List. The country has seven, six cultural and one natural. One of these sites is located in Crimea, a peninsula annexed by Russia in 2014. Ukraine has an indicative list of 17 sites. This inventory indicates national properties likely to be submitted for inscription on the World Heritage List.
Ukrainian and UN teams have been working since before the start of the invasion to try to protect the heritage. Some collections have been evacuated to the West, in particular to Germany. The heritage value of certain places and monuments is signaled to the armies using the sign of the Blue Shield, a technique devised at the end of the 20th century.and century by international bodies representing museums, libraries, archives, monuments and sites.
war crimes
Military academies often define war as killing people and breaking things. This destructive adventure is normally done by respecting certain rules. Theoretically, civilians cannot be targeted and prisoners are entitled to respect.
Similarly, the 1954 Hague Convention protects cultural property such as museums, monuments, archaeological sites, works of art or books in the event of armed conflict. The Russian Federation is bound to the convention by a signature of the USSR dating from 1957.
The International Criminal Court (ICC) found Ahmad al-Mahdi guilty of war crimes in September 2016 for having intentionally destroyed ten of the most important and best-known monuments of Timbuktu in Mali, a city inscribed on the World Heritage List. This was the first complaint of its kind filed before the ICC.
“UNESCO’s mandate concerns the prevention and assessment of damage and possibly their reconstruction,” explains the director of the World Heritage Centre. The Organization is not empowered to investigate war crimes. Its analyzes can, however, be used as evidence by the competent authorities, as was the case during the destruction of the heritage of Timbuktu in Mali in 2012 by jihadist groups. »