Russia Destroyed 1,685 Ukrainian Cultural Sites Since 2022, Inflicting $31 Billion in Losses

Since the beginning of Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine, 1,685 cultural heritage sites and 2,483 cultural infrastructure facilities have been either destroyed or damaged.

This was reported by Ukraine’s Ministry of Culture via Facebook on February 24.

“The war has taken the lives of 346 artists and 132 Ukrainian and foreign media professionals. Each loss represents a lost piece of our cultural memory,” the statement read.

The ministry also reported that the direct losses to Ukrainian culture total approximately $4.2 billion, while the overall losses to the cultural sector, including lost revenue, exceed $31 billion.

Over the four years of the war, 1,685 cultural heritage sites and 2,483 cultural infrastructure objects have been affected, with 507 completely destroyed. Additionally, Russia has stolen 35,482 museum artifacts, with more than 1.7 million items remaining in temporarily occupied areas, at risk of being destroyed.

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In 2025 alone, 307 cultural heritage sites and 261 cultural infrastructure facilities were impacted by the ongoing war. The most significant damage to cultural heritage sites was reported in the Kharkiv region, where 344 objects were affected, followed by Kherson (297), Odesa (182), Donetsk (175), and Kyiv and its surrounding region (163).

Additionally, shelling and fighting severely damaged 2,446 cultural infrastructure facilities, with 498 of them being completely destroyed. The hardest-hit regions for cultural infrastructure include Donetsk, Kharkiv, Kherson, Kyiv, Sumy, and Mykolaiv.

The ministry reported that the damaged facilities encompass 1,193 community and cultural centers, 854 libraries, 188 arts education institutions, 136 museums and galleries, 50 theaters, cinemas, and philharmonic halls, as well as parks, zoos, nature reserves, circuses, and a film studio in Kyiv.

Earlier, to mark the third anniversary of Kherson’s liberation from Russian occupation, Ukraine's Defense Intelligence published data revealing that over a thousand cultural items were systematically looted by Russian forces from the O. Shovkunenko Kherson Regional Art Gallery.

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