On the night of 15 June 2026, Russia carried out another mass missile and drone attack across Ukraine, including Kyiv, Dnipro, Sumy, and other cities. The attack killed at least 11 people and injured 53 others.

Two Russian drones deliberately struck the medieval monastery of the Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra, a UNESCO World Heritage site, and Mystetskyi Arsenal, the largest cultural centre in Ukraine.

Particularly symbolic is the damage inflicted on the Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra, one of the most important spiritual and cultural landmarks of Eastern Europe. Founded in the 11th century, Lavra has been a centre of learning, book printing, art, philosophy, and religious life of the region for a millennium. It is a place of pilgrimage and a living part of Europe’s cultural heritage.

The attack also severely damaged the Dovzhenko National Film Studio, destroying Ukraine’s largest and oldest film costume collection, which contained approximately 100,000 items and more than three million garments, the Kharkiv Art Museum and the Organ and Chamber Music Hall in the city of Dnipro, including its unique concert organ.

Taken together, these attacks reveal a broader pattern. Russia yet again targeted the institutions through which Ukrainians preserve memory, create art, share knowledge, and imagine their future.

Since February 2022, Russia has damaged or destroyed 1,913 cultural heritage sites and 2,573 cultural infrastructure facilities across Ukraine. Museums, libraries, archives, places of worship, theatres, universities, and cultural centres have repeatedly come under attack.

Ukrainian culture is not collateral damage in this war. It is one of Russia’s targets.

Russia’s assault on Ukrainian culture did not begin with missiles and drones. For generations, Ukrainian heritage has been appropriated and misrepresented, while cultural institutions and the people who created and preserved them have faced suppression, censorship, imprisonment, and violence. Today’s attacks are part of that continuing history.

Condemnation alone is not enough. Protection, documentation, restoration, and accountability matter. So does ensuring that Ukrainian culture remains present in the world.

Russia seeks to narrow the space in which Ukrainian culture can exist. As leaders and representatives of cultural and academic institutions around the world, you can help expand that space.

Therefore, we appeal:

To museums and galleries: we call for a fair and decisive revision of engagement and partnerships with Russian cultural institutions, their affiliates and proxies. We also encourage accurate attribution of Ukrainian artists and their works and proactive implementation of decolonial practices in institutional policies. Where exhibitions of Ukrainian work are already in planning, we welcome you to engage and work closely with Ukrainian experts and curators.

To festivals, cultural organisations and venues: we call for informed and inclusive programming decisions that welcome artists and creatives from Ukraine and other underrepresented nations and communities. Cultural spaces must not, even unintentionally, extend legitimacy to cultures implicated in war crimes and acts of genocide. Such due diligence is not a restriction of cultural exchange or artistic freedom — on the contrary, it ensures integrity and moral accountability.

To universities: we encourage sustainable investment in interdisciplinary Ukrainian and Crimean Tatar studies and a review of Russia-centric approaches to the study of Ukraine and Eastern Europe. We call for tangible action: new professorship positions, fellowships, research opportunities, and academic exchange. We invite universities to join and contribute to the Global Coalition of Ukrainian Studies, an initiative aimed at strengthening the long-term presence of Ukrainian studies in research and higher education.

To research centres and think tanks: we welcome continued, rigorous documentation of the damage inflicted by Russia on Ukraine’s cultural heritage, and its recording in the Hague-based Register of Damage. We encourage critical examination of the narratives that accompany these attacks as well as broader strategies employed by Russia to instrumentalise culture in hybrid warfare.

We also encourage governments, international organizations, and partners to support the Ukraine Cultural Heritage Fund, a transparent multi-donor platform dedicated to protecting and restoring Ukraine’s cultural heritage amid the devastation of war.

The most powerful answer to cultural erasure is cultural presence. Exhibit Ukrainian culture. Study it. Translate it. Research it. Teach it. Enjoy it.

Advisory Board and Team of the Ukrainian Institute