Ukraine Prepares for "Cultural Ramstein" in February 2025
A ‘Cultural Ramstein’ to coordinate international efforts to preserve Ukraine's cultural heritage and national identity may take place as early as February next year with the participation of ministers of culture from European and G7 countries.
This was stated by Minister of Culture and Strategic Communications Mykola Tochytskyi during a visit to Brussels following a meeting with representatives of key European institutions, Ukrinform reports.
‘The Russian Federation is targeting not only our civilian and military facilities, not only people, civilians, but, above all, our identity. They started this destruction in Crimea and continue it now, during the full-scale aggression. That is, for ten years now, everything that constitutes Ukraine's identity in art, culture, and painting has been destroyed, stolen, or taken away and sold to Russian museums. This is yet another indication that this war is existential for the Ukrainian people - I'm talking about the political nation that is Ukraine,’ the Ukrainian official said.
He said that he had raised these issues during talks with Glenn Micallef, European Commissioner for Intergenerational Equality, Culture, Youth and Sport, and invited the European Commissioner to visit Ukraine to take part in the cultural Ramstein, which was announced by the President of Ukraine in his address to the Verkhovna Rada in November this year.
The ministry and other working bodies of the Office of the President are currently working on preparing a plan for the event. We will discuss its main provisions with Ukrainian cultural figures in December. And in early February next year, I invited my colleague Micallef to join us to institutionalise the cultural Ramstein at the level of the European Union and G7 culture ministers. This meeting will take place in Ukraine,’ Tochytsky said.
He noted that he had already visited some European capitals and talked with ministers and colleagues about organising this meeting. In particular, the governments of Poland and Germany have already confirmed their readiness to join the process.
‘Of course, we will talk about the implementation of Ukraine's Resilience Plan and the development of relations with our colleagues and partners in this context. This event (cultural Ramstein - ed.) will be dedicated to preparations for the conference on Ukraine's recovery to be held in Rome in July 2025. Culture should take its rightful place in this conference, it will be the cornerstone of all four panels,’ the Ukrainian official said.
Earlier, President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenskyy, during the presentation of Ukraine's Internal Resilience Plan in the Verkhovna Rada on 19 November 2024, announced a proposal to gather a large coalition of allies and partners who have a vision for the development of cultural policy in Ukraine and hold such meetings regularly in the format of a ‘cultural Ramstein’.