UNESCO published information on the number of destroyed cultural sites in Ukraine
The United Nations cultural agency UNESCO said it had confirmed damage to 207 cultural sites in Ukraine since the February 24 Russian invasion.
88 religious sites, 15 museums, 76 buildings of historical and/or artistic interest, 18 monuments and 10 libraries. The words of UNESCO Director for Culture and Emergencies Christa Pikkat, said at a press conference in Geneva, are transmitted by the AlJazeera TV channel .
The agency monitors the extent of the damage using satellite imagery: the agency's specialists compare the image and can indicate the probable time period in which the damage occurred.
Piccat stated:
This is sort of a pilot experiment to see how we can usefully collect this information, and perhaps in the long term our goal is to expand the scope beyond Ukraine and take this tool to the global level so that we really , could have a kind of real-time interactive tool for our experts.
An AlJazeera report says UNESCO is trying to combat the threat of looting, a common problem in war.
UNESCO also discussed with Kyiv the possibility of removing cultural heritage objects from the country during the war, but Pikkat admitted that this was a “difficult challenge”, and the first step was to evacuate the collections to safer regions of Ukraine.
Pikkat said that to date, thank God, none of the seven world heritage sites have been damaged.