Over 2,100 Cultural Infrastructure Sites in Ukraine Damaged or Destroyed by Russian War

In Ukraine, as of 25 October 2024, 2,109 cultural infrastructure facilities have been damaged or destroyed as a result of full-scale Russian aggression.

This was reported by the Ministry of Culture and Strategic Communications of Ukraine.

These include cultural institutions subordinated to the ICSC and other central executive authorities, excluding cultural heritage sites. According to the Ministry, 368 of them were destroyed (17.45%).

Losses of state-owned cultural institutions in Ukraine amount to 37 units (14%), and municipal cultural institutions - 2072 units (6%).

The ministry noted that the greatest losses and damage to cultural infrastructure occurred in Donetsk, Kharkiv, Kherson, Kyiv, Mykolaiv, Zaporizhzhia, and Luhansk regions.

The largest group of cultural infrastructure facilities that were damaged or destroyed are clubs (48.3% of the total number of cultural facilities that were damaged).

Clubs, libraries, museums, and theatres in 297 territorial communities (20.2% of the total number of amalgamated communities) were damaged in Vinnytsia (3.2%), Dnipro (20%), Donetsk (87%), Zhytomyr (17%), and Zakarpattia (2%), Zaporizhzhya (40.3%), Kirovohrad (2%), Kyiv (27.1%), Luhansk (46.2%), Lviv (5.5%), Mykolaiv (44.2%), Odesa (9.9%), Poltava (4%), Sumy (62.7%), Kharkiv (58.9%), Kherson (43%), Khmelnytsky (17%), Cherkasy (6.1%), Chernihiv (49%) regions and Kyiv.

In total, 1,018 clubs, 750 libraries, 163 art education institutions, 120 museums and galleries, 38 theatres, cinemas and philharmonic halls, seven nature reserves, nine parks and zoos, and four circuses were affected.

As of the end of October 2024, almost the entire territory of Luhansk and significant parts of Zaporizhzhia, Donetsk and Kherson regions are still occupied by the Russian Federation. This makes it impossible to accurately calculate the number of cultural institutions affected by the hostilities.