Over 500,000 Cultural Artefacts Evacuated by Ukraine’s Ministry of Culture Since Full-Scale Russian Invasion

The Ministry of Culture and Strategic Communications of Ukraine has reported that during the full-scale Russian invasion, 540,942 museum objects from the state part of the Museum Fund of Ukraine were evacuated from the frontline regions. In particular, evacuation measures were taken from 59 cultural institutions in Zaporizhzhia, Dnipro, Donetsk, Luhansk, Mykolaiv, Odesa, Poltava, Sumy, Kharkiv, Kherson, and Chernihiv regions. 

At the same time, the Ministry is collecting information from museums located in the frontline regions on the needs for evacuation of museum objects. In addition, the IACC collects information on the possibility of accepting evacuated museum objects in institutions located in the rear regions. Full lists of valuables and documents to be evacuated are submitted to the Ministry.

In accordance with the current legislation, the evacuation is carried out taking into account the security situation by regional military administrations with the involvement of the relevant units of the Ministry of Internal Affairs.

As The Gaze previously reported, about two million items of Ukrainian cultural heritage are under Russian occupation.

In December last year, Ukraine was the first country in the world to use UNESCO's special monitoring mechanism. The House of State Industry in Kharkiv, which was heavily damaged by a Russian missile strike on 8 November, has been placed under UNESCO's special monitoring mechanism on an emergency basis. The decision was made by the UNESCO Committee for the Protection of Cultural Property in the Event of Armed Conflict.