Firenze per l'Ucraina · The context
Heritage under fire
What the war is doing to Ukraine’s museums, churches and land, and why conservators are needed now.
The war
A war now in its fifth year
The war in Ukraine began in 2014, when Russia annexed Crimea and fighting broke out in Donbas, the eastern region around Bakhmut. On 24 February 2022 it became a full-scale invasion from the north, east and south. Within days the United Nations General Assembly, by 141 votes, deplored “in the strongest terms” the aggression against Ukraine.
Bakhmut became the scene of the longest battle of the war to date. A city of some 70,000 people was destroyed, and Russia claimed it on 20 May 2023. Russian troops now use the site as a weapons depot, and the city is disappearing into the countryside.
Fighting and long-range strikes continue across the country. Behind every figure on this page are the people who live with them.
- 16,431
- civilians killed and 48,613 injured, as verified by the UN. The real toll is higher.UN Human Rights Office, to 30 June 2026
- 5.9 million
- Ukrainians living as refugees abroad.UN Refugee Agency, via Al Jazeera, December 2025
- 19.3%
- of Ukraine’s territory under Russian control.Institute for the Study of War, via Al Jazeera, December 2025
Cultural and natural heritage
Ukrainian heritage is a primary target in this war, not just a casualty
Churches, museums, libraries and monuments are counted as war damage alongside homes, roads and power stations. Ukraine’s Ministry of Culture keeps a register of the sites hit, and UNESCO verifies the damage independently.
The land is under fire too. More than a fifth of Ukraine’s protected nature areas have been hit, and 514 of them are still under occupation (Ministry of Environment of Ukraine, November 2023). National parks have been mined, burned and destroyed.
The destruction of the Kakhovka dam on 6 June 2023 is one of the worst ecological disasters in Europe in decades. The UN Secretary-General called it a “monumental humanitarian, economic and environmental catastrophe” (UN News, 6 June 2023).
Rebuilding culture and tourism alone is expected to cost USD 11.5 billion over the next decade (World Bank, UN, EU and Government of Ukraine).
- 2,185
- heritage sites and 2,686 cultural institutions damaged or destroyed.Ministry of Culture of Ukraine, to end October 2026
- 567
- damaged cultural sites verified so far by UNESCO.UNESCO, 28 October 2026
- 80%
- of the forest in Sviati Hory National Park destroyed. An area the size of Florence still has to be cleared of mines.Ministry of Environment of Ukraine, August 2024
- 6 × Florence
- the area flooded when the Kakhovka dam was destroyed. More than 100,000 people were affected, and the damage came to USD 13.8 billion.UN in Ukraine, June 2025, and UN and Government of Ukraine, October 2023
- 25%
- of Ukraine’s biodiversity destroyed.Government of Ukraine at COP17, October 2026
In 2025 alone, war fires burned countryside the size of Montenegro (Initiative on GHG Accounting of War, February 2026).
Evacuation and looting
Evacuated under fire, looted under occupation
Some 3.5 million museum items sit in collections in the frontline regions. Since February 2022, museum staff have moved 670,000 of them to safety.
In February 2026 the rules were tightened. Every museum within 50 km of the front must now evacuate its collections to at least 75 km behind it, and directors may act without waiting for permission.
“50 km from the front line is now a clear zone for the mandatory evacuation of museum items.”
Tetyana Berezhna, Minister of Culture of Ukraine, February 2026
The big cities are not spared. In Kharkiv a drone strike on 14 June 2026 damaged about 1,000 exhibits at the Art Museum, whose finest works had been evacuated in 2022. In Kyiv a strike on 24 May 2026 blew out the windows of the National Art Museum. In Odesa the Holy Dormition Monastery was hit for the third time in January 2026, while the Fine Arts Museum digitises its collection through the blackouts.
Where territory is occupied, collections are taken. Kherson is the best-documented case, because it is one of the few cities that Russian forces occupied and Ukrainian troops then took back, in November 2022. Before the occupiers withdrew, some 33,000 items were removed from two of its museums, many of them to Crimea (Kyiv Independent investigation, May 2025).
The looting there was thorough and large in scale, and there is every reason to fear the same across the rest of the occupied territory, where some 1.7 million artefacts remain.
- 670,000
- museum items evacuated since February 2022.Minister of Culture, February 2026
- 35,000
- museum items confirmed looted from six museums in territory Ukraine has since retaken.Ministry of Culture via AP, April 2026
- 1.7 million
- artefacts in at least 90 museums still in occupied territory.Coalition of Cultural Actors, February 2026
Why it matters to us
Every evacuated work will need a conservator.
Works packed in haste and stored far from home need to be examined, stabilised and, in time, treated. Yet the people trained to do this are fewer every year, as conscription, exile and injury thin Ukraine’s conservation community.
Our first answer is a pilot: five icons from Bakhmut, restored in Khmelnytskyi by a Ukrainian restorer working with a Florentine specialist.
Figures are the latest published by each source named beside them, to the end of October 2026. We update this page as new figures are released.