Protecting cultural treasures and heritage sites in conflict zones is not some luxury that should be pursued only after all other wartime needs are met. In many wars, cultural erasure is central to the aggressor's strategy; and when it occurs, the prospects for peace and recovery grow dimmer.
LUCERNE – The ravages of war are never confined to the battlefield. The costs are borne by all of society, and when bombs destroy monuments, artworks, and irreplaceable archives, the losses are measured not just in lives and property but in broader historical terms.
Identity, memory, and cultural heritage are what sustain a society through its darkest hours, and their destruction erodes civilization itself. By the same token, the desecration or loss of items that a culture holds sacred can fuel new cycles of grievance, despair, and righteous violence.
The connection between cultural preservation and peace is one reason why governments from around the world came together in 1954 to adopt The Hague Convention for the Protection of Cultural Property in the Event of Armed Conflict. It obliges all parties to identify cultural heritage sites and items, to provide for their protection, and to help enforce sanctions for breaches of the convention. Yet despite such formal commitments, the loss of cultural heritage in conflict zones remains an urgent problem.
Protecting cultural heritage is not some low-priority objective that should be addressed only after all other wartime needs have been met. More often than not, the targeting of priceless treasures is part of the aggressor’s strategy.
A decade ago, when the Islamic State was seizing territory and committing mass atrocities in Syria and Iraq, “cultural cleansing” was central to the group’s activities. As UNESCO Director General Irina Bokova and Abdulaziz Othman Altwaijri of the Islamic Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization noted in March 2015, ISIS’s destruction of the ancient city of Hatra, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, was directly motivated by its propaganda strategy.
The same issue has come to the fore once more in Ukraine, where Russian forces have, since February 2022, targeted, damaged, or destroyed at least 451 cultural sites – including libraries, museums, and religious buildings – each of which is integral to Ukrainian national identity and Ukrainians’ sense of place and belonging.
Don’t miss our next event, taking place at the AI Action Summit in Paris. Register now, and watch live on February 10 as leading thinkers consider what effective AI governance demands.
Register Now
Russian President Vladimir Putin launched his full-scale invasion on the (fallacious) grounds that Ukraine is not a real country and thus should be absorbed into Russia. As the former architect of Putin’s Ukraine policy put it in 2020, “There is no Ukraine. There is Ukrainian-ness. That is, a specific disorder of the mind. An astonishing enthusiasm for ethnography, driven to the extreme. … [Ukraine is] a muddle instead of a state. … But there is no nation. There is only a brochure, ‘The Self-Styled Ukraine,’ but there is no Ukraine.”
Putin later reprised this argument in his pseudo-historical 2021 essay, “On the Historical Unity of Russians and Ukrainians.” In reality, Kyivan Rus was a power in the region centuries before Muscovy even emerged as a state in its own right.
With government and NGO budgets already stretched thin from providing essential humanitarian and military aid to Ukraine, those working to protect and preserve cultural heritage have had to become innovative. Public-private partnerships are crucial, because governments alone often cannot fund or mobilize the expertise needed to preserve at-risk cultural assets. Working alongside private organizations, local institutions, and international NGOs, new partnerships can create powerful networks to close the gap. Such efforts should be understood not only in terms of what we owe our ancestors, but also as investments in our future.
This was the thinking behind Ark for Ukraine, a Czech-based initiative supported by governmental and philanthropic investments and cross-sector expertise. Ark sends special vehicles into the Ukrainian warzone to rescue precious artworks, books, documents, and archival materials; to digitize important documents; and 3D-scan immovable objects like frescoes.
Through this work, Ark could serve as a new global model for cultural preservation in the twenty-first century. Its public-private structure already has a well-established track record. For example, collaborations between pharmaceutical companies, governments, and NGOs accelerated the response to the COVID-19 pandemic and vastly improved vaccine distribution in underserved regions. Similarly, public-private partnerships have helped protect biodiversity hotspots like the Brazilian Amazon from further deforestation.
In each case, collaboration between corporations, governments, NGOs, and philanthropies has yielded more than the sum of its parts – and more than either the public or the private sector could deliver on its own. Now it is time to apply the model to cultural preservation.
In times of war, protecting culture is not a luxury; it is essential for sustaining a people’s sense of self and hopes for recovery. Attacks on cultural sites are acts of cultural erasure, born of the same eliminationist motives that also drive genocide. Tragically, cultural erasure has always been a strategy of war and conquest and has continued to be one in the modern era. The point is to weaken people’s resolve and drive them into despair.
So, protecting culture in war zones should not be treated as an afterthought, but as a cornerstone of any humanitarian response. To be truly effective, efforts at cultural preservation need to be supported by a renewed global commitment of the kind enshrined in the 1954 convention, because cultural heritage is not merely a national asset; it is part of our shared human story.
By building resilience in the domain of culture, we can start working toward a future where all cultures are respected and afforded the protections they deserve. Failure to do so will only strengthen the incentives for future aspiring imperialists who, like Putin, are thinking about launching their own wars of cultural and national erasure.
By protecting cultural identity, we safeguard civilization itself. We must do so not as some noble gesture, but as an act of duty to future generations. When people’s culture and heritage are protected, the path to peace and recovery is smoother.
To have unlimited access to our content including in-depth commentaries, book reviews, exclusive interviews, PS OnPoint and PS The Big Picture, please subscribe
LUCERNE – The ravages of war are never confined to the battlefield. The costs are borne by all of society, and when bombs destroy monuments, artworks, and irreplaceable archives, the losses are measured not just in lives and property but in broader historical terms.
Identity, memory, and cultural heritage are what sustain a society through its darkest hours, and their destruction erodes civilization itself. By the same token, the desecration or loss of items that a culture holds sacred can fuel new cycles of grievance, despair, and righteous violence.
The connection between cultural preservation and peace is one reason why governments from around the world came together in 1954 to adopt The Hague Convention for the Protection of Cultural Property in the Event of Armed Conflict. It obliges all parties to identify cultural heritage sites and items, to provide for their protection, and to help enforce sanctions for breaches of the convention. Yet despite such formal commitments, the loss of cultural heritage in conflict zones remains an urgent problem.
Protecting cultural heritage is not some low-priority objective that should be addressed only after all other wartime needs have been met. More often than not, the targeting of priceless treasures is part of the aggressor’s strategy.
A decade ago, when the Islamic State was seizing territory and committing mass atrocities in Syria and Iraq, “cultural cleansing” was central to the group’s activities. As UNESCO Director General Irina Bokova and Abdulaziz Othman Altwaijri of the Islamic Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization noted in March 2015, ISIS’s destruction of the ancient city of Hatra, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, was directly motivated by its propaganda strategy.
The same issue has come to the fore once more in Ukraine, where Russian forces have, since February 2022, targeted, damaged, or destroyed at least 451 cultural sites – including libraries, museums, and religious buildings – each of which is integral to Ukrainian national identity and Ukrainians’ sense of place and belonging.
PS Events: AI Action Summit 2025
Don’t miss our next event, taking place at the AI Action Summit in Paris. Register now, and watch live on February 10 as leading thinkers consider what effective AI governance demands.
Register Now
Russian President Vladimir Putin launched his full-scale invasion on the (fallacious) grounds that Ukraine is not a real country and thus should be absorbed into Russia. As the former architect of Putin’s Ukraine policy put it in 2020, “There is no Ukraine. There is Ukrainian-ness. That is, a specific disorder of the mind. An astonishing enthusiasm for ethnography, driven to the extreme. … [Ukraine is] a muddle instead of a state. … But there is no nation. There is only a brochure, ‘The Self-Styled Ukraine,’ but there is no Ukraine.”
Putin later reprised this argument in his pseudo-historical 2021 essay, “On the Historical Unity of Russians and Ukrainians.” In reality, Kyivan Rus was a power in the region centuries before Muscovy even emerged as a state in its own right.
With government and NGO budgets already stretched thin from providing essential humanitarian and military aid to Ukraine, those working to protect and preserve cultural heritage have had to become innovative. Public-private partnerships are crucial, because governments alone often cannot fund or mobilize the expertise needed to preserve at-risk cultural assets. Working alongside private organizations, local institutions, and international NGOs, new partnerships can create powerful networks to close the gap. Such efforts should be understood not only in terms of what we owe our ancestors, but also as investments in our future.
This was the thinking behind Ark for Ukraine, a Czech-based initiative supported by governmental and philanthropic investments and cross-sector expertise. Ark sends special vehicles into the Ukrainian warzone to rescue precious artworks, books, documents, and archival materials; to digitize important documents; and 3D-scan immovable objects like frescoes.
Through this work, Ark could serve as a new global model for cultural preservation in the twenty-first century. Its public-private structure already has a well-established track record. For example, collaborations between pharmaceutical companies, governments, and NGOs accelerated the response to the COVID-19 pandemic and vastly improved vaccine distribution in underserved regions. Similarly, public-private partnerships have helped protect biodiversity hotspots like the Brazilian Amazon from further deforestation.
In each case, collaboration between corporations, governments, NGOs, and philanthropies has yielded more than the sum of its parts – and more than either the public or the private sector could deliver on its own. Now it is time to apply the model to cultural preservation.
In times of war, protecting culture is not a luxury; it is essential for sustaining a people’s sense of self and hopes for recovery. Attacks on cultural sites are acts of cultural erasure, born of the same eliminationist motives that also drive genocide. Tragically, cultural erasure has always been a strategy of war and conquest and has continued to be one in the modern era. The point is to weaken people’s resolve and drive them into despair.
So, protecting culture in war zones should not be treated as an afterthought, but as a cornerstone of any humanitarian response. To be truly effective, efforts at cultural preservation need to be supported by a renewed global commitment of the kind enshrined in the 1954 convention, because cultural heritage is not merely a national asset; it is part of our shared human story.
By building resilience in the domain of culture, we can start working toward a future where all cultures are respected and afforded the protections they deserve. Failure to do so will only strengthen the incentives for future aspiring imperialists who, like Putin, are thinking about launching their own wars of cultural and national erasure.
By protecting cultural identity, we safeguard civilization itself. We must do so not as some noble gesture, but as an act of duty to future generations. When people’s culture and heritage are protected, the path to peace and recovery is smoother.