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Statement by the Republic of Lithuania at the UN Security Council Arria-formula meeting on: The destruction of cultural heritage as a consequence of the Russian aggression against Ukraine on Friday, 15 July.

I would like to thank the Permanent Missions of Albania, Poland and Ukraine for organizing this Arria-formula meeting, which Lithuania is proud to co-sponsor. Lithuania aligns itself with the statement by European Union and would like to add some comments on our national capacity.

It has been nearly five months since Russia launched its illegal, unprovoked and unjustifiable aggression against the peaceful country of Ukraine. Since the war started - every single day we are witnessing Russia’s barbaric attacks against civilians and civilian infrastructure, such as hospitals, maternity wards, residential buildings. Every day the number of innocent people dying from Russian terror keeps on growing, while Russia shows its total disregard to international law, including the principles of the UN Charter. We are horrified by the most recent atrocities in the city of Vinnytsia – where Russian missiles struck residential and office buildings, leaving hundreds civilians injured, dozens, including children, killed.

Russia has already destroyed not only lives of millions of people but also many cultural heritage objects in Ukraine, such as religious sites, historic buildings, monuments, Holocaust memorials. There are consistent media reports that Russian forces are looting cultural property. In Mariupol, for instance, there are reports that 2,000 exhibits have disappeared from museums. Furthermore, there are reports of looted artefacts from Ukraine being offered for sale in markets in Belarus.

Attacking country’s cultural heritage is not a new practice – it was known as damnatio memoriae of Roman times - condemnation of memory and erasure from history, an attempt to exclude a specific social and cultural structure from existing, to deny it the right to exist. Destroying cultural heritage is a socio-political tool to reaffirm the possession and power over a territory, over collective memory and identity of people. Destruction of cultural heritage was used by ISIS, it was also used by Russia itself - when it demolished gravesites and seized 4,095 Ukrainian national and local monuments in Crimea since 2014, when it forcibly occupied Crimea and instigated conflict in areas of the Donbas region.

Destruction of cultural heritage is a reminder that, despite enjoying protection under international law, cultural institutions – like civilian populations – are suffering significant losses in a war. The barbaric treatment of Ukrainian cultural sites – is a breach of international law, including the UNESCO Constitution and its provisions on cultural rights, especially the principle of the protection of the cultural heritage of others UNESCO’s 1970 Convention – to which Russia has been a State Party since 1988. Destruction of cultural heritage – is a war crime - the Rome Statute of 1998 establishing the ICC classifies the international destruction of cultural heritage as a war crime in Article 8(2). In 2016, ICC examined the first case examining attacks against cultural heritage in Timbuktu and by its judgement sent a message that the international community will not tolerate destruction of cultural heritage sites.

Russia must be held accountable for all of the war crimes done in Ukraine. We urge Russia to halt the shelling of Ukrainian territory and its people, withdraw its forces and military equipment from the entirety of Ukraine and cease its war, to bring an end to the loss of human life and both tangible and intangible cultural heritage.

I thank you.