Daryna Pidhorna, legal expert and analyst at the Raphael Lemkin Society, took part in the Ukraine Culture Security Forum 2.0 in Warsaw, where she spoke on the panel “Guardians of Identity: How Museums Shape Resistance and Resilience.”
On May 7–8, 2026, the Forum, organized by the OBMIN Foundation, brought together Ukrainian, Polish, and German governmental and non-governmental institutions to continue discussions launched at the first Ukraine Culture Security Forum, held in autumn 2025 at the Polish Embassy in Berlin. This year’s program explored the interdependence of culture and security under the theme “Culture needs security. Security needs culture.”
During the panel, Pidhorna addressed the destruction of museums, archives, libraries, and heritage sites in Russia’s war against Ukraine. She emphasized that these attacks should not be seen merely as collateral damage, but as part of a deliberate strategy to erase Ukrainian identity, memory, and cultural continuity.
Drawing on Raphael Lemkin’s concept of cultural genocide, Pidhorna noted that a group can be destroyed not only through physical extermination, but also through the annihilation of the cultural foundations that make it distinct. Archives, monuments, libraries, museums, and historical narratives are essential to a community’s ability to preserve memory, prove continuity, and understand itself. Pidhorna stressed that Russia’s systematic looting and destruction of cultural heritage, appropriation of artifacts, rewriting of history in occupied territories, and indoctrination of children all serve one objective: to deny Ukraine’s existence as a distinct nation.
She called on the international community to recognize cultural destruction as one of the central objectives of Russia’s war, not as a secondary humanitarian issue. She also underlined the need for stronger legal, political, and institutional responses, including emergency documentation, support for cultural heritage professionals, investigations into cultural property crimes, and sanctions targeting the movement of looted Ukrainian artifacts.
The discussion underscored the urgent need to treat cultural security as an essential component of national and international security. Protecting Ukrainian culture means protecting the memory, identity, and continuity of a people facing a genocidal war.
We are grateful to the OBMIN Foundation for hosting this important forum and inviting our organization to take part.