Ukraine

Ukraine

Lozova Palace of Culture, damaged in a missile strike on May 20, 2022. Credit: Anton Shynkarenko
Lozova Palace of Culture, damaged in a missile strike on May 20, 2022. Credit: Anton Shynkarenko
Credit: Anton Shynkarenko

What You Need to Know

As of July 2024, PEN Ukraine has documented the deaths of at least 117 cultural workers and activists since the beginning of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, including writers, journalists, artists, and actors.

Russia’s actions, which included damaging or destroying important cultural buildings and undermining the teaching of and in Ukrainian, now serve as a blueprint for their cultural erasure efforts in areas they have invaded and occupied.

Twenty eight media workers and citizen journalists were held in captivity in 2023 in occupied areas of Ukraine, including the 2022 PEN/Barbey Freedom To Write honoree, Vladyslav Yesypenko, who is serving a six-year sentence on false charges.

Featured Case: Vladyslav Yesypenko

Yesypenko is a Ukrainian freelance journalist whose work covers social issues affecting residents of Crimea and the profound impacts of Russian occupation on the lives of Crimean Tatars. In 2022, we honored Yesypenko with the PEN/Barbey Freedom to Write Award.

Learn more about Yesypenko’s continued bravery at the 2022 PEN America Literary Gala.

Featured Case: Volodymr Vakulenko

In 2022, Ukrainian children’s book writer Volodymyr Vakulenko was kidnapped by Russian-affiliated forces and found killed in a mass grave in Izium. Vakulenko wrote about life in Ukraine under the occupation in a diary, which he buried before his abduction.

Learn more about Vakulenko in the 2022 Freedom to Write Index.

Ukrainian Culture Under Attack: Erasure of Ukrainian Culture in Russia’s War Against Ukraine

Widespread destruction of Ukraine’s museums, theaters and libraries, the persecution of writers and artists, and other attacks against Ukrainian heritage expose the breadth of Russia’s attempts to erase the country’s cultural identity as a tactic of war, according to a new report by PEN America and PEN Ukraine.

Experts