In the three years since Russia entered Ukraine, almost daily heavy drone attacks and rocket bombing have been killed thousands of citizens and much more displaced. In addition to the loss of life and large -scale damage to civil infrastructure, Russia has focused on many valuable Ukrainian cultural and natural heritage sites.
Now Donald Trump’s presidency is new challenges for Ukraine, suggesting that a pivot is removed from the conservation efforts supported by the BIDEN administration, such as that of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs Ukraine Cultural Heritage Response Initiative.
At least 476 sights have been damaged since February 2022, including archaeological and religious locations, buildings of historical or artistic significance, museums, monuments, libraries and archives, according to a list Published by UNESCO last month. These sites include the KYIV Teacher house, also included in the World Monument Fund’s (WMF) 2025 Watchlist of threatened cultural heritage.
A historical symbol of Ukrainian independence, the former parliament building saw its doors, windows and dome with glass panels damaged By a rocket dump in October 2022. The WMF, supported by the US State Department Ambassadors Fund for Cultural Preservation and KYIV City Administration, completed repairs in the building last year, including replacing the shattered dome glass.
“History and culture pay a heavy toll for the war and it is no coincidence that they are being attacked, because it is the identity and nature of Ukraine that they are attacked,” said the Minister of Culture and Strategic Communication of Ukrainian and strategic communication Mykola Nichtskyi in an October meeting for the Council of Europe. Nevertheless emphasized That the widespread wreck of Ukrainian culture is part of the systematic plan of Russia to ‘rewrite history’.
Despite the efforts of organizations such as WMF, Trump’s recently imposed federal financing inspection has uncertain the future of vital programs. This applies to the Ukrainian heritage digitalization and distribution initiative (Uhddi) who aims to maintain Ukrainian cultural artifacts by digitizing collections, such as those of the Odessa Archaeological Museum.
The initiative is launched by the non -profit organizations Cyark and Archaic and is supported by the US Embassy Fund Program. It currently consists of a team of nearly 20 people who work around the clock to protect the Ukrainian heritage, Simon Radchenko, archaic co-founder and Uhddi project coordinator, said Hyperallergic.
Radchenko said that Uhddi “largely depends on the importance of the US to maintain it” and that archaic is currently open to cooperation with other international institutions.
Other Ukrainian heritage preservation programs also remain funded in the uncertain, such as the Ministry of Foreign Affairs Conflict Observatory Ukrainewho has documented the impact of the Russian war on the Ukrainian cultural and natural heritage. In the first phase of the program, senior researcher Kate Harrell told Hyperallergic That researchers document a trend of deliberate Russian activities aimed at deleting Ukrainian culture (an assimilation process known by historians as “Russification”). Harrell said that the activities that the researchers have recorded include aloud successions about religious freedom, plundering the Kherson Museum and the trade in antiques and natural resources for Russia. Other examples of Russification included classifying Ukrainistic artists such as Russian.
The next phase of the program should concentrate on conservation and distribution, but last month, the program website Dark, the cutting of access to the report hub and the database for researchers, went.
A spokesperson for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs told Hyperallergic That the department “is currently carrying out a strategic assessment of all activities of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to ensure that they are efficient and consistent with the first agenda of America.”
“Some programs and initiative activities, projects and planned journeys are influenced by this strategic assessment, which remains underway,” said the spokesperson.
As international officials, these developments come to the alarm about President Trump’s comments about a potential peace agreement, which seemed to concentrate the interests of Russia on the disadvantage of the participation of Ukraine to what was widely criticized Like a shocking diplomatic pivot point.
But although federal programs have stopped freezing in the midst of financing, the reports of atrocities have not stopped, Fiona Greenland noted, a senior researcher for the Ukraine conflict observatory.
“The actions of the current administration so far indicate a considerable de-prioritization of investigating alleged atrocities in the full invasion of Russia,” Greenland said Hyperallergic.
“If we do not document the impact of this war against Ukrainian culture and communities, we run the risk of not only losing valuable information, but also the ability to tell the full story of what happened,” Greenland continued.
The cultural heritage work of non -governmental organizations and social organizations such as WMF and the Ukrainian institute of America (UIA), which focuses on promoting and maintaining Ukrainian art and culture, are becoming increasingly critical.
“The reduction of American support for cultural presetives not only threatens physical monuments and artifacts, but also broader efforts to protect the cultural legacy of Ukraine for future generations,” said Lydia Zaininger, executive director of UIA, said Hyperallergic.
Today, 27 February, WMF CEO Bénédicte de Montlaur travels to the Capitool to conduct personal conversations with partners from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs about the federal fairs of the organization that support cultural conservation and maintenance work.
“In any case, we need support from other institutions and donors to continue our work in Ukraine,” said a WMF spokesperson Hyperallergic.
While non -governmental organizations continue to pursue this work, Greenland noted, sending federal financing “a hair -raising message” to Ukraine and other conflict zones that “are no longer the protection of art, religious freedom, literature, architecture and historical sites”.
