Russia's Indiscriminate Destruction of Non-military Targets Directed Towards Cultural Destruction Too?

Russia's indiscriminate bombing of non-military targets
Photo : Mykhaylo Palinchak/SOPA Images/REX/Shutterstock 
          

Many Ukrainians believe Russia is destroying and damaging churches, museums and monuments as part of "erasing" Ukraine from the map (Conor Devlin, Is Russia intentionally targeting Ukraine's cultural landmarks? NBC News March 28, 2022). A number of cultural properties in Ukraine have been affected by Russia's so-called 'special military operation' (in which we remember they claimed only military sites would be affected by 'precision' bombing and shelling). The frequency with which this has happened (along with the massive damage done to civilian targets) promotes doubts on the Russian aims and strategic targeting abilities. The paper cites damage to the building of Kharkiv’s Fine Arts Museum and 17th century Holy Dormition Cathedral, the latter was shelled as residents sheltered inside, damaging the building, shattering the stained glass windows and causing damage to the interior fittings. In Mariupol, the Russian military has destroyed the city’s Arkhip Kuindzhi Art Museum. Since Feb 24, more than 60 spiritual sites have been destroyed or badly damaged by Russia. It's approx two sites a day (map here). These are Orthodox, Protestant, Roman Catholic, Muslim, and Jewish spiritual buildings. AS Devlin puts it:

Targeting historic monuments and cultural heritage sites is a war crime under international law, according to The Hague Convention of 1954. But that all seems to be part of Russia’s plan, some cultural authorities say. “They just want to erase from the map Ukraine — our heritage, our history, our identity and Ukraine as an independent state,” said Iryna Podolyak, Ukraine’s former vice minister of culture, who said Russia’s military seems to be targeting cultural heritage sites in addition to houses, hospitals and schools.

Russia’s military tactics have made it harder to determine whether landmarks are being specifically targeted or whether damage is a byproduct of attacks on the civilian population. Russian forces have shelled nonmilitary areas from long distances in an attempt to demoralize Ukraine and drive civilians out of cities.

It will be remembered that just days before Russia started this war (Feb. 21, 2002) Vladimir Putin had claimed in a speech, “There is no nationhood in Ukraine. … Contemporary Ukraine was completely created by Russia … by Soviet Russia”. This is a claim he'd made before and reflects a notion of identity/nationhood/ethnicity that itself has its roots in soviet ideology. It rather looks like damaging Ukrainian cultural sites, and the specific urban landscapes of their cities is an attempt to embody these ideas and express the motion of Russian cultural superiority. Let us also take into account the reports that have been emerging suggesting that cultural cleansing has been attemptyed in the areas occupied by the Russian military. Reportedly, Russian authorities have there been confiscating textbooks on Ukrainian history from libraries in occupied areas and burning them (here, and here for example). The Russian position seems to be that the "Ukrainian language doesn’t exist, that Ukrainian people do not exist, that Ukraine is a nonentity and can never be sovereign because there is no such country as Ukraine”.

By leveling the country’s landmarks, some experts argue, Putin will try to redefine Ukraine’s history and culture as Russian. “If we are speaking about Russian politics, during the last few years, we could say that the Russian president and government says there is no Ukrainian culture and everybody is all Russian,” said Igor Kozhan, director general of the Andrey Sheptytsky National Museum in Lviv.

The post below concerns an attempt to gather information on the scale and location of these incidents.

One element of Russian culture that is quite well-known in the Internet are their folk music ensembles, dressesd in folk costume or replica Cossack uniforms and singing rousing melodic songs or romantic ballads. One cannot fail to note that in their repertoire are indiscriminately mixed Russian and Ukraininan pieces as though they were all part of a single culture. I have stopped listening to these groups while Russia contibnues its aggression in Ukraine.