In late 2023, PEN America submitted a report to the United Nations Human Rights Council’s Independent International Commission of Inquiry in Ukraine detailing Russia’s extensive attacks on Ukrainian cultural infrastructure.
While this submission focuses on attacks on civilian infrastructure, it is important to note that they take place within the context of Russian President Putin’s and his officials’ repeated, disingenuous, and aggressive claims denying that Ukraine exists as a nation or that Ukrainians have an identity and culture distinct from that of Russia and Russians. These claims have been used to justify the full-scale war and occupation that preceded it.
Much of the information included in this report was originally published in PEN America and PEN Ukraine’s December 2022 report, “Ukrainian Culture Under Attack: Erasure of Ukrainian Culture in Russia’s War Against Ukraine,” based on interviews with artists, writers, and other cultural workers in Ukraine and desk research conducted in 2022. Additional cases of Russian attacks on cultural architecture in 2022 and 2023 are also included in this submission, based on desk research in 2023. This list is not exhaustive.
