Russia’s sweeping barrage of missiles and drones on Ukraine over the weekend damaged some of the nation’s most significant cultural institutions, in what officials condemned as a deliberate assault on Ukraine’s history.
“This is a war against our culture, memory and identity,” said Kyrylo Budanov, a top aide to Ukraine’s president.
“For centuries, Moscow has tried to destroy everything that makes us Ukrainian.”
Minister of Culture Tetiana Berezhna said it marked the “largest series of damages” to Kyiv’s cultural institutions since the beginning of Russia’s full-scale war against Ukraine.
Officials said Kyiv’s National Art Museum and The National Philharmonic of Ukraine, both in the heart of Kyiv, were badly damaged, with many other historic buildings in the city centre also affected.
The National Chornobyl Museum, Kyiv Opera Theater, the Ukrainian House, the Valeriy Lobanovskyi Dynamo Stadium and Hinaus Gallery were caught in the intense aerial assault across the capital.
Ukraine’s government headquarters — the Cabinet of Ministers — and its Foreign Ministry also sustained minor damage from the strikes.
The Interior Ministry said that more than 40 per cent of the items in the Chornobyl Museum’s collection were “irrevocably lost.”
“With today’s strike, Russia attempted to destroy not only lives but also memory,” the ministry said.
The museum had recently reopened after extensive renovations to mark the 40th anniversary of the 1986 Chornobyl nuclear disaster. It has closed temporarily while damage assessments and recovery efforts are underway.
Rescuers and museum employees worked quickly to save artifacts after the strike and managed to recover significant items from storage facilities, including a painting by renowned Ukrainian folk artist Maria Prymachenko and the flag of Ukraine that was installed at the Chornobyl plant after Russian troops withdrew from the occupied site in 2022, the ministry said.