Challenges to the preservation of Ukraine’s Cultural Heritage during the Russo-Ukrainian war: Reflections of experts for the “City and War Project”

Since 2014, the Russian invasion of Ukraine has inflicted vast damage and de¬struction on the country’s diverse cultural heritage. The expert community estimates Ukraine’s cultural losses as already the highest since World War II, and they continue to mount, es¬pecially in areas of active hostilities and those still occupied by the invaders. Furthermore, the Russo-Ukrainian War has triggered a broad reassessment of the cultural heritage in Ukrainian society, causing a ‘turn’ in the understanding of, and attitude towards, culture in general. Recognizing the complexity and momentousness of these developments, in May 2022 a group of scholars from the V. N. Karazin Kharkiv National University launched the project “City and War: Destruction, Preservation and Rethinking of the Cultural Heritage of Large Cities in Eastern and Southern Ukraine During the Russo-Ukrainian War”. The project brings together thoughts of cultural experts on the war-related destruction of Ukraine’s cultural heritage and efforts to protect it. The project team has already collected 36 in-depth interviews with Ukrainian specialists. The paper approaches this body of expert opinion as important testimony for understanding the pre-war state of Ukraine’s cultural heritage, its current situation, and further prospects for its preservation and reinterpretation.