‘Russia has conducted direct assault on Ukraine's culture'
choing the Kremlin's playbook, the Russian ambassador spreads sheer misinformation. Casting the aggressor as the victim is a classic product of Russia's propaganda machine.
And that is exactly why we counter these statements with facts.
In 2022, Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine — and with it, a direct assault on Ukrainian culture. As of June 2025, Ukraine's ministry of culture and information policy reports that more than 1,400 cultural heritage sites have been damaged or destroyed by Russian forces. Unesco has so far verified 501 of these sites, including museums, churches, libraries and monuments.
Also read:
Beyond the battlefield: The price of war and the fight for peace - An 8-part series
At its 46th session, held in New Delhi in July 2024, the Unesco World Heritage Committee officially recognised Russia's invasion as a direct threat to Ukraine's cultural heritage. The committee called on Russia to refrain from any actions that may damage Ukrainian World Heritage sites — including Saint Sophia Cathedral and Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra, and the Historic Centre of Lviv, all now listed as World Heritage in Danger.
Additionally, museums have been looted. Schools and churches bombed. Children deported and subjected to forced indoctrination to erase their Ukrainian identity.
Since Russia's illegal occupation of Crimea in 2014, indigenous Crimean Tatars have been targeted with over 110 cultural artifacts being looted and historic landmarks damaged.
The Russian Orthodox Church has become a weapon of this cultural war. It sends clergy to occupied Ukrainian territories to bless aggression, justify violence, and spread propaganda under the guise of faith.
But repression does not erase Ukrainian identity. It only strengthens our resolve to defend it.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Mint
5 minutes ago
- Mint
‘No wonder other countries laugh at us': Social media slams Donald Trump as his remark makes female host uneasy
Donald Trump appeared on Fox & Friends. It was a day after meeting European leaders and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky at the White House to discuss peace with Russia. However, he moved away from politics to share a piece of 'breaking news'. While expected to focus on his talks with Zelensky and Russian President Vladimir Putin about the Ukraine war, Trump instead spent much of his time praising the Fox hosts. He was especially interested in Ainsley Earhardt and her relationship with Sean Hannity. Donald Trump spoke at length about the Fox News hosts, who got engaged last Christmas after years of dating. Their relationship began after both had gone through divorces. Though the couple had kept their relationship mostly private before, it was already known in media circles. Trump teased Hannity during his remarks, saying he could take the 'lovely young lady' to dinner in Washington, pointing out Earhardt sitting there. The US president said, 'I don't want to get him in trouble, so I'd better explain exactly. We don't want any secrets here.' 'That's the greatest relationship. I hope I'm not breaking any news,' Trump said while Earhardt looked uneasy. 'This could be the most important thing I said. But, let me tell you those are two great, Ainsley and Sean, great people! When they go out to dinner, I don't want to see them mugged,' Trump added. 'Now, they can go out. They can hold hands. They can walk down the street. They are both superstars. I wonder who makes more money. He's gotta be making a lot,' the US president said. Social media users did not take it well. Many of them found Trump's behaviour offensive. 'The discomfort all over her face and in her body language,' commented one of them. Another wrote, 'I'm embarrassed. This is our president, everyone.' 'Dear God! Does he ever think before talking?' reacted a social media user. 'This is the president?' wondered another. Another wrote, 'It's amazing how little self-awareness he has.' 'Sounds like the drunk neighbour,' quipped another. 'The uncle we can't stand!' came from another. Another commented, 'Why should anyone be surprised by the nonsense?' 'This is our president. No wonder the other countries laugh at us,' came from another.
Time of India
8 minutes ago
- Time of India
Is the Ukraine summitry all reality TV, zero substance?
So much has happened in recent days, it's easy to overlook how little has happened. To wit: Nothing material. Not when it comes to matters of war and peace in Ukraine , where Russian President Vladimir Putin continues to bomb civilians, to detain children (for which he is wanted by the International Criminal Court) and more generally to terrorize a sovereign nation that he considers an errant satrapy. That, however, is not the impression you may have formed if, like me, you've been following the summitry and pageantry on YouTube, TikTok, X, Truth Social or your medium of choice. In the endless scroll of our screens, one meme chases another while all orbit around the bright yellow-orange star of the show, Donald Trump . The medium is the message, the philosopher Marshall McLuhan observed six decades ago. And the message today is that this US president — for better or worse — is shaping world affairs. Here is Trump applauding Putin as the Russian leader approaches on a red carpet in Alaska. There he is again, receiving the rehearsed gratitude of the Ukrainian president and seven European allies, who rushed impromptu to the White House to contain whatever damage the KGB-trained Putin may have wreaked in Trump's mind. There he'll soon be again, if and when Trump gets both Putin and his Ukrainian counterpart, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, into the same room, in what would be a 'trilat' made for Reality TV. by Taboola by Taboola Sponsored Links Sponsored Links Promoted Links Promoted Links You May Like The Top 25 Most Beautiful Women In The World Car Novels Undo Reality TV — and specifically The Apprentice — was of course the medium that, starting in 2004, catapulted Trump from relative obscurity onto the memetic platform from which he ultimately stepped into the Oval Office not once, but twice. Like so much in our zeitgeist, everything about this medium is sort of real and sort of not, kind of jocular and kind of serious, not quite substantive but always performative. It is a universe in which Trump's meeting in the Oval Office with Zelenskiy in February — when the American host berated and humiliated the Ukrainian guest — counted within the White House as a success because, as the president put it, it made for 'great television.' Trump ran that script again during another visit to the Oval Office, when he trapped South Africa's president in an ambush as devastating as it was riveting. Live Events A virtuoso of the craft, Trump also incorporates voluntary or involuntary extras, bit players and cameos into his show. He mused about whether or not he would bomb Iran's nuclear facilities not at the Resolute Desk but on the White House lawn, where a work crew was erecting a flagpole and unexpectedly became the supporting cast in this particular episode. When weighing air strikes, or anything, Trump's first question to his advisers isn't about his options or strategic consequences. It is: 'How is it playing?' None of this would have surprised McLuhan, who analyzed (without judging) the role of media in the creation of reality, and did so when print and radio were old and television was new. Content, he understood, was subservient to the vectors in which it reaches human brains. A text-based culture rewards linear and logical thinking. Video (already in McLuhan's time) instead turns politics into theater, shortens attention spans and favors appearance over substance. As media change accelerated in the 1980s and 90s — during Trump's formative years — other theorists elaborated on McLuhan. Jean Baudrillard, a French sociologist, saw that the media increasingly reflected not reality but what he called hyperreality, a world of 'simulacra,' or copies without originals. In one memorable phrase, he said that 'the map precedes the territory,' by which he meant that narratives trump (sorry) truth. That popped into my mind this week as Trump presented Zelenskiy with a map of Ukrainian territories now apparently up for negotiation. Still writing before the rise of Fox News or TikTok, the American media theorist Neil Postman came closest to predicting the moment we are in today. In Amusing Ourselves to Death , he argued that the new media would increasingly turn everything — from news to politics and war — into mere entertainment and spectacle. He foresaw a dystopia not unlike Brave New World , in which Aldous Huxley's Soma takes the form of Insta feeds or Trump's Truth Social. So here we are, with two summits down and several more to go. We parse things such as, say, wardrobes. In the Oval Office in February, Zelenskiy was roasted for wearing the military-style garb he has donned since Russia invaded; this time he showed up in all black, and Trump agreed that he looked 'fabulous.' A positive sign? Days earlier, the Russian foreign minister arrived at his Alaskan hotel with a sweatshirt that, in Cyrillic, advertised the 'USSR.' Code for Putin's imperialist treachery? And all the while a tragedy is unfolding for those who dare to see it. The reality — yes, there still is one — includes these facts: The war that Trump once promised to end in 24 hours rages on. Trump keeps toggling between blaming Putin and Zelenskiy for it. By being ambiguous about US support, he has hurt Ukraine's effort to defend itself. By ending Putin's diplomatic isolation, Trump has made the Russian side stronger than it would be. And by giving Putin a deadline for a ceasefire, then letting it expire without the 'severe consequences' he promised just a week ago, Trump forfeited the pressure he needs to exert now. What's new is that there are suddenly lots of meetings about meetings. What remains is that people are bleeding, crying and dying, all because of the decisions made by one man, Putin. In the minds of Trump and most of us in our brave new world, the map may seem to precede the territory. But that is not a luxury which people have, say, in Luhansk or Donetsk. Ukrainians and their friends are right to turn off their phones for a while, in the sad knowledge that nothing meaningful has changed.
Time of India
22 minutes ago
- Time of India
Russia says it will keep selling oil to India despite US tariffs
Russia expects India to continue buying its oil, a senior official said, even as the South Asian nation faces higher US tariffs and harsh criticism from Trump administration officials for the trade. India's imports of Russian crude are likely to stay at current levels, Evgeny Griva, the deputy trade representative of Russia in India, told reporters in New Delhi on Wednesday. The remarks come amid rising tariff tensions between the US and India. President Donald Trump has imposed a 25% tariff on Indian goods and threatened to double it to 50% on Aug. 27 — a rate that would make India's $85 billion in annual US exports uncompetitive. by Taboola by Taboola Sponsored Links Sponsored Links Promoted Links Promoted Links You May Like Nikoo Homes: Luxury Starts @ ₹1.2 Cr* Nikoo Homes Sadahalli Learn More Undo Half of that penalty is for New Delhi's purchases of Russian oil, which the US sees as helping fund Russian President Vladimir Putin's war on Ukraine. India has defended its right to buy from the cheapest source, calling the tariffs 'unreasonable.' Russia sells oil to India at about a 5% discount, leaving Asia's third-largest economy with few alternatives, Griva said. He projected bilateral trade to grow by about 10% a year. Live Events For India, the advantage of Russian oil is that it can trade at a lower cost, making it a key tool for keeping domestic inflation in check. India has edged away from the US in the face of tariff threats. Prime Minister Narendra Modi hailed Putin as a 'friend' after a call with the Russian leader this week and New Delhi has moved to bolster relations with China. Modi is set to visit China in late August — his first trip to the country in seven years — to meet President Xi Jinping. India's External Affairs Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar is on a three-day visit to Russia to co-chair bilateral talks on trade, science and other issues. US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent on Tuesday repeated Washington's threat to raise import duties on Indian goods, saying it was 'secondary tariffs for buying the sanctioned Russian oil.' He said India was 'profiteering' from the oil purchases, and 'some of the richest families in India' were benefiting. Bloomberg India historically relied more on the Middle East for oil, importing little from Russia. That changed in 2022, after the full-scale invasion of Ukraine and a $60-per-barrel price cap imposed by the Group of Seven nations that aimed to limit the Kremlin's oil revenues while keeping supplies flowing globally. India's imports from Russia amounted to about 1.7 million barrels a day, or nearly 37% of the nation's overseas purchases, in mid-2025. After a brief pause earlier this month, India's state-run refiners have returned to buying Russian oil, Bloomberg News reported Wednesday. The US is India's top trading partner, while Russia ranks fourth. Roman Babushkin, a senior Russian diplomat in India, said Moscow is ready to take more of India's tariff-hit goods and help India manufacture jet engines domestically.
