Ukraine calls on UN to protect World Heritage site in Crimea

Ukraine has accused Russia of turning Crimea’s Taurian Chersonese, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, into a “historical and archaeological park,” and called on the United Nations to intervene.

The site, an ancient city founded by the Greeks in the 5th century BC on the northern shores of the Black Sea, was inscribed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2013. The following year, Russia illegally annexed the Crimean Peninsula. Ukraine and its allies do not recognize Russian sovereignty over Crimea, a key gateway to the eastern Mediterranean, and have campaigned for its recovery since the beginning of its occupation.

The new complex, called New Chersonesus, houses a Russian Orthodox monastery and several institutions, including a museum of Christianity and the Museum of Crimea and Novorossia (Novorossia is Russia’s term for the annexed territories in Crimea). The complex was built by the Russian Defense Ministry with funds from Transneft, a state-controlled company, and is run by a cleric appointed by Russian President Vladimir Putin. It was officially opened on July 28.

On July 24, Dmytro Lubinets, the Ukrainian parliament’s commissioner for human rights, called on the UN to protect the site and described its redevelopment as part of Russia’s plan to destroy Ukrainian heritage.

Russia has “completely destroyed the authentic monument of world significance, Chersonesus Taurida,” Lubinets said in a statement posted on his Telegram channel. “They have started illegal construction work on its ruins, actually building a new city, the so-called historical and archaeological park.”

In a new report, Evelina Kravchenko of the Institute of Archaeology of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine said that Taurian Chersonese had been “disturbed.” In addition, she added, “tens of thousands of finds” had been destroyed. “Some of them were collected from these dumps by local residents, both for personal storage and for sale on the black market. So, we will soon be able to see artifacts from Chersonese in online auctions.”

The annexation has created legal and ethical dilemmas for Ukraine and the international cultural sector. In November, the Allard Pierson Historical Museum in Amsterdam sparked controversy when it returned 400 objects, including highly prized Sythian gold, to a museum in Kiev. The collection had been loaned to Amsterdam by four Crimean museums before the annexation, and after the incident, both Ukraine and Crimea demanded the objects be returned.

“This is a special case, in which cultural heritage has become a victim of geopolitical developments,” Els van der Plas, director of the Amsterdam museum, said in a statement.

Since the invasion of Ukraine, the Russian military has been repeatedly denounced by international watchdog groups for its apparent targeting of Ukrainian cultural heritage. In April, the Kherson Art Museum in Ukraine identified 100 paintings that were allegedly looted by Russian troops, as seen in a video filmed at a museum in Crimea. The museum said the 100 artworks captured on camera likely represent “less than 1 percent” of what has been looted from Ukrainian museums.