UNESCO has adopted an amendment to the World Heritage Committee decision that allows for the development of long-term strategies for the protection of cultural heritage in armed conflicts. The initiator was Ukraine.
According to the Ministry of Culture and Information Policy, according to the new document, future UNESCO reports will include a separate section on the impact of war on cultural sites.
This will allow not only to record threats, but also to develop systematic approaches to heritage preservation.
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“This step will allow us not only to record threats to heritage sites, but also to formulate long-term response strategies in the event of military action,” the MKIP statement says.
Let us recall that in July 2024, UNESCO condemned Russian aggression against Ukraine and the deliberate destruction of cultural heritage.
As of May 25, 2025, according to the Ministry of Culture, Russia has damaged or destroyed 1,482 cultural sites in Ukraine , in particular:
- 335 – in the Kharkiv region,
- 282 – in Kherson,
- 172 – in Donetsk,
- 159 – in Odessa,
- more than 100 in Kyiv and Kyiv region.
Let us recall that the Ukrainian Armed Forces have a unit for the protection of cultural heritage. Its main task is to coordinate actions to preserve and prevent the destruction of objects that may be threatened as a result of military operations.
