Destruction of Ukrainian heritage is happening on a scale not seen there since World War II, a report published by the journal, Antiquity, has claimed.
The report lists damage to a number of historic sites, including the Unesco-listed Vasyl Tarnovsky Museum of Ukrainian Antiquities and the burial mound at Boldyni Hory – one of the largest eleventh-century Ukrainian necropolises. Since the war began, Unesco has verified damage to 329 sites, including to the historic centre of Chernihiv.
It adds that collections have been expropriated and transferred to Russia from museums in occupied regions, including Kherson (now back under Ukrainian control), Melitopol and Mariupol, while in other cases artefacts have been pillaged by Russian soldiers to keep or sell. Researchers are using satellite data as well as on-the-ground assessments to document the destruction of Ukraine’s cultural heritage.
