Mapping the destruction of the cultural heritage of Ukraine and the Ecological impacts of war
Russian aggression against Ukraine has resulted in a number of war crimes, including the deliberate destruction of Ukrainian identity, sites of Ukrainian culture, history, memory, and environmental destruction with catastrophic ecological consequences.
The Kharkiv region has the second largest number of destroyed cultural monuments after Donetsk. Kharkiv region has been fully liberated from Russian occupation, but it is an area carrying a huge amount of environmental burden especially in the visible area still on contaminated agricultural land.
Over 200,000 square meters, Ukraine is contaminated with mines and unexploded ordnance, preventing local farmers access to their land and resuming the agricultural cycle. For a country whose main export is agricultural products. This has devastating consequences.
This project enables a detailed mapping of the problem in a place we know well and where we have long-term partners. Creating a detailed case study focusing on this area, Team4Ukraine contributes to the understanding of the problem, the dissemination of knowledge in the Visegrad countries and helps donors and EU states involved in the reconstruction of Ukraine to understand the extent of the damage. This is one of the reasons why Team4Ukraine initiated the crowdfunding campaign for the demining machine “Božena 5”.
The results of detailed mapping will help to restore the process of preparation for post-war Ukraine and its reconstruction and will fulfil the coverage of these two topics in the research of war crimes in Ukraine.
The project is funded by the Visegrad Fund and implemented in cooperation with Adapt Institute and Smolna Association.
Photo: Iva Zimová
Powered by Froala Editor
