Over Thousand Cultural Heritage Sites in Ukraine Destroyed, Damaged by Russian Occupiers

In Ukraine, 1169 cultural heritage sites have been damaged as a result of full-scale Russian aggression, 22 of them in September.

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

‘According to the information provided by the regional and Kyiv city military administrations, in September the total number of affected cultural heritage sites in the regions increased by 22 and now stands at 1169 sites. Of these, 117 are of national significance, 983 are of local significance, and 69 are newly discovered,’ the statement said.

It is noted that repeated hits to previously damaged cultural heritage sites were recorded in Kherson and Sumy regions. New hits were recorded in Donetsk, Dnipro, Kharkiv, Kherson, Sumy and Lviv regions.

In total, cultural monuments in 18 regions and Kyiv were damaged, in particular: in Kharkiv region - 315, Kherson - 154, Donetsk - 161, Odesa - 116, Chernihiv - 65, Kyiv region and Kyiv city - 81, Zaporizhzhia - 49, Mykolaiv - 41, Dnipro - 41, Lviv - 60, Luhansk - 31, Sumy - 29, Khmelnytsky - 10, Poltava - 6, Vinnytsia - 4, Zhytomyr - 4, Kirovohrad - 1, Cherkasy - 1.

The ministry added that as of the end of September 2024, almost the entire territory of Luhansk and significant parts of Zaporizhzhia, Donetsk and Kherson regions are still under temporary occupation. This makes it impossible to calculate the exact number of damaged cultural heritage sites affected by the hostilities and occupation.