The Verkhovna Rada calls on global institutions to condemn the cultural genocide of the Russian Federation against the Ukrainian people.
The corresponding resolution No. 15338 on the appeal of the Verkhovna Rada to the United Nations, parliaments and governments of UN member states, member states of the European Union and NATO, the European Parliament, UNESCO, and the Parliamentary Assemblies of the Council of Europe, the OSCE, and NATO regarding the condemnation of the policy of systematic cultural genocide by Russia directed against the Ukrainian people receives support from 252 people’s deputies at a plenary session of the Ukrainian parliament on Wednesday.
In the appeal, the Verkhovna Rada insists that the targeted destruction of Ukrainian museums, architectural complexes, and religious shrines by Russia is a demonstrative challenge to international law. By destroying cultural heritage, Russia consciously violates the 1954 Hague Convention, the UNESCO Convention Concerning the Protection of the World Cultural and Natural Heritage, and other international legal acts.
“The Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine considers unacceptable a situation in which a state that systematically causes damage to World Heritage sites and cultural values continues to enjoy all the rights of a UNESCO member state. Such a situation requires an immediate and principled reaction from the international community with the use of all available influence mechanisms,” the appeal states.
The Ukrainian parliament calls for the acceleration of the initiation and consideration of procedures to suspend the membership rights of the Russian Federation in UNESCO as a state that grossly violates the principles and goals of the organization.
The Verkhovna Rada also calls on international communities to intensify the activities of international organizations regarding the documentation, recording, and provision of a proper international legal assessment of the crimes of Russia against the cultural heritage of Ukraine and to strengthen international mechanisms for holding Russia accountable for the systematic destruction of Ukraine’s cultural heritage objects.
The Ukrainian parliament calls on international organizations to recognize the practice of destroying Ukrainian cultural heritage by Russia as a threat to world cultural heritage and international security.
“International organizations, primarily the United Nations, UNESCO, the Council of Europe, and the European Union, must increase political and diplomatic pressure on the Russian Federation through the adoption of resolutions, official statements, and other acts that condemn the destruction of Ukrainian cultural heritage and attempts at the violent assimilation of the population in the temporarily occupied territories of Ukraine,” the appeal notes.
As reported on the website of the parliament, the initiators of the resolution are five people’s deputies of the European Solidarity faction, including co-chairman of the faction Iryna Herashchenko and head of the Verkhovna Rada Committee on Ukraine’s Integration into the European Union Ivanna Klympush-Tsintsadze.
Leader of the political force, people’s deputy Petro Poroshenko presents the draft resolution. He notes that Russia consciously destroys the cultural and historical heritage of Ukraine, and therefore it should be excluded from all international institutions.
“We are used to thinking that the state border runs along a map. Not only. The state border goes through language, memory, museums, theaters, traditions. That is why the enemy strikes the Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra, that is why the enemy strikes the Shukhevych house, the Dovzhenko Film Studio, the Mystetskyi Arsenal, the Kharkiv Art Museum, and the House of Organ Music in Dnipro. These are not accidental strikes. This is a conscious attempt to destroy our historical and cultural memory. People say that culture is the decoration of a state. No. Culture is the state itself. Therefore, our appeal is to immediately condemn and exclude the aggressor from all international organizations,” Poroshenko said.
