At least 53 cultural sites in Ukraine have been damaged or destroyed since Russia invaded in February, and the destruction continues in towns besieged or bombarded by Moscow’s forces, according to the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization.
“We have a damage control meeting every day and the list is lengthening,” said Ernesto Ottone, assistant director-general for culture, at Unesco headquarters in Paris on Friday. “We are very worried about the situation, not only humanitarian but also for the protection of cultural heritage. Humanity’s heritage is indeed in peril.”
Ottone and Lazare Eloundou Assomo, director of Unesco’s world heritage centre, said they had named only those sites where damage had been verified. So far none of Ukraine’s seven listed world heritage sites, which include the St Sophia cathedral in the capital Kyiv, were known to have been hit.
Audrey Azoulay, who heads Unesco, wrote to Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov last month to remind Moscow of its obligations to protect cultural sites under the 1954 Hague Convention, to which both Russia and Ukraine are signatories. Unesco said Lavrov had replied that “the Russian Federation is well aware of its obligations under international humanitarian law, including the 1954 Hague Convention”.
The Ukrainian sites damaged or destroyed include 29 churches, several museums and war monuments, and theatres in Mariupol and Kharkiv. Kharkiv is the worst-hit region in terms of affected sites, followed by Donetsk.
Little information has come out of Chernihiv, another heavily bombarded town, but Eloundou Assomo expressed concern about the historic town centre and its buildings dating back a millennium.
Deliberate destruction of cultural heritage in time of conflict is considered a war crime under international law, the Unesco officials noted.
This post has been updated to include a reply from Sergei Lavrov
Source: Economy - ft.com
