The PACE Culture Committee recognized the erasure of Ukrainian cultural identity as a tool of the Russian Federation’s war against Ukraine and an element of the genocidal policy aimed at the destruction of the Ukrainian nation

The PACE Culture Committee in Copenhagen unanimously supported my resolution “Combating the Destruction of Cultural Identity in War and Peace”

Many thanks to the Prosecutor General of Ukraine Andrii Kostin for his speech at the committee, and important legal explanations with a call to support the resolution! Office of the Prosecutor General

Among the key provisions of the document that will be voted on in the hall at the June PACE session:

ensure full compensation for damages based on international law, in particular, through restitution, compensation, rehabilitation, satisfaction and guarantees of non-repetition of destruction;

raise awareness of how propaganda, colonial and neo-colonial practices, in particular

the ideology of the “Russian world” can create grounds for violations of international law, in particular, regarding cultural heritage

provide for sanctions against all those who carry out or facilitate the illegal transfer or trade of artefacts, carry out illegal excavations or use artefacts for their own purposes (exhibitions, auctions, scientific publications), and also ensure that the authorities and involved state institutions are held accountable.

NB The resolution establishes that the Russian Federation uses cultural “purges” as a tool of war to deny the existence of other cultural identities and erase historical roots, values, heritage, literature, traditions and language. Such actions are war crimes and crimes against humanity and indicate a specific genocidal intent to destroy the Ukrainian nation or at least a part of it, in particular, by destroying Ukrainian identity and culture. This is part of the genocidal campaign that the Russian Federation is conducting against the Ukrainian people.

I illustrated my speech today with a book by the writer Volodymyr Vakulenko, published by the Vivat publishing house.

During the occupation, Vakulenko wrote a diary and hid it under a cherry tree in his native village in the Kharkiv region; the writer Victoria Amelina found this diary and wrote a brilliant foreword to the book. Both of them were killed by Russia.

Vivat printed the book in Kharkiv at the printing house “Faktor Druk”, Russia destroyed the printing house with its missile attack, killing 7 of its workers and burning 50 thousand books…

This tragic story, The New Shot Revival, is what my resolution is about.

About how to preserve what Russia is trying to destroy, kill and erase. It is about Ukrainian culture, our heritage and our identity.