Moscow 'guilty of destroying heritage', Ukraine's culture minister tells Euronews https://www.euronews.com/culture/20...age-ukraines-culture-minister-tells-euronews? The Ukrainian Culture Minister Oleksandr Tkachenko has accused Russia of what he calls "cultural genocide" in his country. He says 160 Ukrainian churches and at least two museums have been deliberately targeted by Russian troops simply because they represent Ukraine's distinct cultural identity. In Kharkiv alone, around 500 buildings are listed as being of historic architectural significance. According to a body documenting damaged heritage sites, most are in the dense historic city centre, on which Russian airstrikes are concentrated. Across the country, volunteers have joined in a huge effort to remove valued artefacts from locations considered to be under threat of attack as Russia's full-scale attack on Ukraine approaches the seven-month mark. "For my belief, it's for sure genocide. It's not only about people, I mean human lives and territory. It's also about our identity which represents our cultural heritage, our language, history. “As soon as Putin and his regime denies the identity of Ukrainians they are trying to ruin everything which is connected to cultural heritage" Oleksandr Tkachenko told Euronews. In a bid to accelerate the rescue mission, Ukraine's Culture Ministry has partnered with Uber. The US tech giant has developed a custom-built version of its app to transport conservationists to where they're needed. The company's CEO Dara Khosrowshahi told Euronews that Uber vans have been ferrying teams between evacuation sites and storage free of charge. "This is about national pride. It's about identity, its history. The Ukrainian culture is a deep culture that deserves to be protected," says Khosrowshahi. “Obviously, the focus early on, and appropriately so, was on lives and food. “But Ukrainian history is something that we should all come together to preserve as best we can in this tragic war that's going on", the Uber CEO adds. In occupied parts of Ukraine, Moscow is trying in various ways to impose Russian language and culture on local populations. For Ukrainians, the war is not just about lives and territory, it is an existential battle for cultural survival. "Recording the destruction will also assist in criminal proceedings. We see serious damage to heritage across the whole country. It's genocide towards Ukrainian people and genocide towards Ukrainian culture," says architect Kateryna Kuplytska. Some critics suggest it is futile to document historic buildings in such meticulous detail while the war is still raging and people are dying every day. But Tetyana Pylyptshuk, the director of the Kharkiv literary museum, begs to differ. "Culture is the basis of everything. If culture had developed well, people probably wouldn't be dying and there wouldn't be a war," she says. Pylyptshuk, who also sits on the commission on damaged historical sites, has sent most of her museum collections to western Ukraine to protect them from damage, and, from looting. "Today, everyone realises this. Maybe they were not so attentive to our cultural heritage before... but when you lose it, it hurts."
This could be framed as “Putin’s war on religion”, reminding the religious of his character and his threat to their values, if not actual lives.
Ukraine war: Accounts of Russian torture emerge in liberated areas https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-62888388
Russian soldiers line up and shoot Ukrainian kids as girls shave heads to avoid rape NHS staff were told about the horrors of the Russian President Vladimir Putin's troops while volunteering with orphaned children and traumatised troops in Ukraine https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/world-news/russian-soldiers-shot-ukrainian-kids-27996390
‘People disappeared’: Izium’s residents on Russia’s occupation After Ukrainian forces recapture the town, its people say Russians came knowing who they wanted and took them away https://www.theguardian.com/world/2...peared-iziums-residents-on-russias-occupation
When are the civilized nations on the face of the earth going to hold Putin and his Russians responsible for their war crimes? At this point we have clear testimony to the terror they inflicted. ‘Torment of hell’: Ukraine medic describes Russian torture https://apnews.com/article/ukraine-...e-conditions-32ee91d1ee7e9267ef229fcd7af75f04 WASHINGTON (AP) — A volunteer Ukrainian medic held captive three months by Russian forces in Ukraine’s besieged port city of Mariupol told U.S. lawmakers Thursday of cradling and comforting fellow prisoners as they died of torture and inadequately treated wounds. Ukrainian Yuliia Paievska, who was captured by pro-Russian forces in Mariupol in March and held at shifting locations in Russian-allied territory in Ukraine’s Donetsk region, spoke to lawmakers with the Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe, better known as the Helsinki Commission, a government agency created in part to promote international compliance with human rights. Her accounts Thursday were her most detailed publicly of her treatment in captivity, in what Ukrainians and international rights groups say are widespread detentions of both Ukrainian noncombatants and fighters by Russia’s forces. Known to Ukrainians by the nickname Taira, Paievska and her care of Mariupol’s wounded during the nearly seven-month Russian invasion of Ukraine received global attention after her bodycam footage was provided to The Associated Press. “Do you know why we do this to you?” a Russian asked Paievska as he tortured her, she recounted to the commission. She told the panel her answer to him: “Because you can.” Searing descriptions of the suffering of detainees poured out. A 7-year-old boy died in her lap because she had none of the medical gear she needed to treat him, she said. Torture sessions usually launched with their captors forcing the Ukrainian prisoners to remove their clothes, before the Russians set to bloodying and tormenting the detainees, she said. The result was some “prisoners in cells screaming for weeks, and then dying from the torture without any medical help,” she said. “Then in this torment of hell, the only things they feel before death is abuse and additional beating.” She continued, recounting the toll among the imprisoned Ukrainians. “My friend whose eyes I closed before his body cooled down. Another friend. And another. Another.” Paievska said she was taken into custody after being stopped in a routine document check. She had been one of thousands of Ukrainians believed to have been taken prisoner by Russian forces. Mariupol’s mayor said that 10,000 people from his city alone disappeared during what was the monthslong Russian siege of that city. It fell to Russians in April, with the city all but destroyed by Russian bombardment, and with countless dead. The Geneva Conventions single out medics, both military and civilian, for protection “in all circumstance.” Sen. Ben Cardin, a Maryland Democrat and co-chair of the Helsinki Commission underscored that the conditions she described for civilian and military detainees violated international law. Rep. Joe Wilson, R-S.C., called Russian President Vladimir Putin a war criminal. “It is critical that the world hear the stories of those who endured the worst under captivity,” Wilson said. “Evidence is essential to prosecution of war crimes.” Before she was captured, Paievska had recorded more than 256 gigabytes of harrowing bodycam footage showing her team’s efforts to save the wounded in the cut-off city. She got the footage to Associated Press journalists, the last international team in Mariupol, on a tiny data card. The journalists fled the city on March 15 with the card embedded inside a tampon, carrying it through 15 Russian checkpoints. The next day, Paievska was taken by pro-Russia forces. Lawmakers played the AP’s video of her footage Thursday. She emerged on June 17, thin and haggard, her athlete’s body more than 10 kilograms (22 pounds) lighter from lack of nourishment and activity. She said the AP report that showed her caring for Russian and Ukrainian soldiers alike, along with civilians of Mariupol, was critical to her release, in a prisoner exchange. Paievska previously had declined to speak in detail to journalists about conditions in detention, only describing it broadly as hell. She swallowed heavily at times Thursday while testifying. Ukraine’s government says it has documented nearly 34,000 Russian war crimes since the war began in February. The International Criminal Court and 14 European Union member nations also have launched investigations. The United Nations Human Rights Monitoring Mission in Ukraine says it has documented that prisoners of war in Russian custody have suffered torture and ill-treatment, as well as insufficient food, water healthcare and sanitation. Russia has not responded to the allegations. Both the United Nations and the international Red Cross say they have been denied access to prisoners. Paievska, who said she suffered headaches during her detention as the result of a concussion from an earlier explosion, told lawmakers she asked her captors to let her call her husband, to let him know what had happened to her. “They said, ‘You have seen too many American movies. There will be no phone call,’” she recounted. Her tormentors during her detention would sometimes urge her to kill herself, she said. “I said, ‘No. I will see what happens tomorrow,”’ she said.
Ukrainians Find 440 Bodies in Izium Mass Grave After Russian Occupation https://www.thedailybeast.com/ukrai...-in-izium-mass-grave-after-russian-occupation