Two years after the shocking Russian military invasion on Europe's doorstep, Ukraine is also fighting to not be forgotten. The death toll has reached hundreds of thousands and the list of damage to its cultural heritage has significantly increased. In April 2023, a UNESCO report listed 248 damaged monuments, the majority of them religious sites, and put the cultural losses at around €2.4 billion. A year later, a further 100 damaged heritage sites were identified, bringing the total to 341, while the damage is now estimated at €3.3 billion. "Not everything is or can be quantified," added Chiara Dezzi Bardeschi, who heads the UN agency's office in Kyiv.
Ukraine has become a real-time testing ground for the rescue of cultural heritage. "For the first time, we're intervening during an active war rather than after the conflict," noted Krista Pikkat, UNESCO's Director of Culture and Emergencies. In 2022, for example, the UN agency urgently restored the roof of the Odessa Museum of Fine Arts. However, after the bombings of November 5, 2023, it was necessary to start all over again. "During the first operation, the building's historic windows were secured, but we'll wait until the end of the war before reinstalling them," Bardeschi explained.
To assess the extent of the damage, UNESCO relies on satellite images, supplemented wherever possible by visual verification. Training courses were hastily designed and a specialized center for Ukrainian professionals was established in Lviv in collaboration with the Getty Institute in Los Angeles and the Smithsonian Institution in Washington DC. This has trained 1,600 agents, although they have not always achieved their objectives. Illicit trafficking is flourishing, particularly in old coins. "We don't know what types of objects have been stolen. In most museums, inventories are incomplete, sometimes not digitized," Pikkat admitted.
Heritage isn't everything. Artists are also needed. The film industry is in dire straits, as are publishing houses. According to UNESCO, a budget of some $9 billion (€8.7 billion) over the next 10 years would be needed to rebuild the cultural fabric, revitalize anemic cultural industries and restore destroyed heritage sites.
For the time being, UNESCO estimates that $197 million will be needed to bring certain buildings back into operation by 2024. This task is challenging given that support from Western countries is running out and media focus has shifted to the Israel-Hamas conflict since October 7, 2023. "When a situation gets bogged down, it becomes increasingly difficult to mobilize donors," Bardeschi regretted.
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