Ukrainian World Congress Joins Efforts to Protect Ukrainian Culture
On August 26, Acting Minister of Culture and Strategic Communications of Ukraine (MCSC) Tetiana Berezhna met with a delegation from the Ukrainian World Congress (UWC) led by Pavlo Grod to join forces in strengthening cultural resilience and restoring Ukrainian cultural values.
The Gaze reports this, referring to the Ministry of Culture and Strategic Communications of Ukraine.
During the meeting, the parties discussed strengthening cultural diplomacy, implementing joint cultural projects, and coordinating international support for Ukraine in the context of the war.
Tetyana Berezhna emphasized that culture is a key element of national security and state stability. “We are currently working on specific mechanisms to support culture: along with budgetary financing, we are actively developing grant, credit, and patronage instruments that allow us to attract additional resources to the cultural sphere,” she added.
Special attention was paid to the preservation and restoration of cultural heritage damaged as a result of Russian aggression.
The Minister stressed the importance of coordinating international assistance, in particular through the newly created Alliance for Cultural Resilience, which was presented at the URC2025 Conference on the Restoration of Ukraine.
In particular, the meeting focused on supporting young people and creating conditions for the return of Ukrainian specialists from abroad, their involvement in reforms and European integration processes.
In this context, Tetiana Berezhna presented the Create Ukraine program, which provides internship and job opportunities in government agencies and has already shown positive results, with further expansion planned.
Pavlo Grod, in turn, expressed his support for the initiatives and confirmed the readiness of the Ukrainian World Congress to join the activities of the Alliance for Cultural Resilience, emphasizing its importance for the return of stolen cultural property.
The cooperation also focused on the activities of the National Museum of the Holodomor Genocide, in particular the progress in establishing Supervisory and Expert Councils with the involvement of UWC representatives. The participation of Ukrainian artists in international cultural events organized by foreign communities in Brazil, Canada, the United States, and EU countries was discussed separately, as well as the involvement of the Ukrainian diaspora in searching for and identifying stolen cultural property.
At the end of the meeting, Paul Grod invited Tetiana Berezhna to participate in the opening of a major Ukrainian festival in Toronto, which attracts over a million visitors each year and serves as a powerful platform for presenting Ukrainian culture to an international audience.
Summing up the meeting, Berezhna emphasized that the support of the Ukrainian World Congress is important because joint efforts can “not only strengthen the cultural resilience of the nation, but also speak to the world in the language of culture, art, and truth about Ukraine.”
As The Gaze informed earlier, Germany has provided Ukraine with almost €29 million in cultural assistance since the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion, and pledged to deepen cooperation in restoring Ukraine’s war-damaged cultural heritage.