Transitions Media Examines the Destruction of Ukrainian Cultural Heritage and the Path to Accountability
A new article by Transitions Media examines how Ukraine is working to protect its cultural heritage during Russia’s war and why documenting attacks on culture is essential for future accountability.
The article, “Rescuing Art From Ukraine’s War Zones,” by Ukrainian journalist Anna Romandash, explores efforts to evacuate museum collections, document losses, preserve evidence, and address the legal challenges surrounding Russia’s destruction and appropriation of Ukrainian cultural heritage.
The article features Daryna Pidhorna, legal expert and lawyer with the Raphael Lemkin Society, who explains that crimes against Ukrainian culture have been documented since Russia’s occupation of Crimea in 2014. These attacks, she notes, should not be viewed as isolated incidents but examined in the broader context of policies aimed at controlling occupied territories, suppressing Ukrainian history, and reshaping Ukrainian identity.
“They are targeting the elements of Ukrainian culture that are most threatening to their empire. It is about destroying what represents Ukrainian identity,” Pidhorna says.
Pidhorna describes Crimea as a testing ground for methods later repeated in other occupied Ukrainian territories. The destruction of monuments and museums, appropriation of cultural objects, removal of evidence of Ukrainian history, and persecution of cultural figures can help reveal broader patterns and the purpose behind attacks on culture.
The legal significance of such evidence lies in establishing connections between individual crimes and a wider system of conduct. As Pidhorna explains, the destruction of cultural heritage does not automatically constitute genocide. However, when multiple crimes demonstrate a common purpose, consistent patterns, and evidence of intent, they may point to a broader strategy directed against the identity of a protected group.
The article also features Olha Sahaydak, Head of the Board of the Coalition of Culture Actors, who discusses the practical challenges of protecting museum collections during wartime. She emphasizes the importance of evacuation planning, clear procedures, and detailed records of museum holdings.
Documentation is particularly important in occupied territories, where Russian forces have taken not only cultural objects but also museum inventories and records. Without those records, identifying stolen objects and proving their provenance can become significantly more difficult.
The experience of museums in Mariupol and Kherson illustrates these challenges. In Mariupol, cultural institutions were damaged or destroyed and collections were removed after the city came under Russian occupation. In Kherson, digital records preserved by some museums may help investigators identify objects taken from their collections if they later appear elsewhere.
More than 2,500 incidents of cultural destruction have already been documented in a format that could be presented before international courts, according to the article. This evidence is essential for establishing patterns of conduct, identifying those responsible, and examining the intent behind systematic attacks on Ukrainian culture.
For the Raphael Lemkin Society, documenting crimes against culture is part of a broader effort to ensure that attacks on Ukrainian cultural heritage are examined within the full context in which they occur. Understanding the relationship between individual acts of destruction, policies in occupied territories, and attacks on Ukrainian identity is critical both for accountability and for preventing similar crimes in the future.