“War destroys monuments” photo exhibition visited Frankfurt (Oder)

In February–March, the European University Viadrina in Frankfurt (Oder) was hosting an exhibition of photographs from the special category “War destroys monuments” of the Wiki Loves Monuments Ukraine photo contest, which is organized annually by Wikimedia Ukraine.

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is in its fifth year, and in addition to its human toll and economic impact, cultural monuments have suffered as well. Just on 24 March 2026 a Russian drone strike hit a building in the area of the 17th  century Bernardine Monastery within the World Heritage property of Lviv. “L’viv – the Ensemble of the Historic Centre” was included on the UNESCO list in 1998 and added to the organisation’s List of World Heritage in Danger in 2023. The attack on Lviv was a part of the largest and longest aerial assault on Ukraine since the beginning of the full scale invasion in 2022. The city that houses a large percentage of Ukraine’s cultural heritage was attacked in broad daylight in front of the whole world¹. 

Overall, over four years of full-scale war, Russian forces have destroyed or damaged 1,685 cultural heritage sites in Ukraine, according to the most recent data from Ukraine’s Ministry of Culture. Since 2023, as part of the Wiki Loves Monuments photo contest, we have been documenting the consequences of Russian crimes against Ukrainian cultural heritage through the special category “War destroys monuments.”

The exhibition, organized by Viadrina University, featured 20 photographs of destroyed and damaged monuments from various regions of Ukraine submitted for this special category. They included, for example, a photograph of the ruins of the wooden Church of the Nativity of the Theotokos in Viazivka village, Zhytomyr Oblast destroyed by Russian shelling on March 7, 2022, or a photo of the “Store”, a historical building on Constitution Square in Kharkiv damaged by a Russian missile strike on March 2, 2022.

“The pictures presented here tell a visual story of the toll of the Russian full-scale invasion of Ukraine on cultural heritage – places of worship destroyed in wartime, residential buildings and educational institutions under fire, libraries, theaters and monuments damaged and so on. Rockets, missiles, drones… Four years of documenting crimes against Ukrainian civilians and cultural heritage,” the authors of the exhibition note.

The exhibition was initiated by Renata Hanynets, a participant of Wiki Loves Monuments in previous years, a doctoral candidate at the Chair of Heritage Studies at the European University Viadrina, and a staff member of the Competence Network Interdisciplinary Ukrainian Studies Frankfurt (Oder) – Berlin (KIU).

“Since Russia started its full-scale invasion, Ukraine has not left the front pages of the world’s newspapers. The focus has been on human losses, the humanitarian catastrophe, and the destruction of infrastructure. Yet the loss of cultural heritage often remains in the shadows. Destroyed museums, burned archives, damaged churches, and historic buildings do not always make it into the media spotlight, even though their destruction represents not only a material but also a symbolic loss.

War destroys not just buildings – it destroys memory, historical continuity, and cultural identity. The destruction of heritage is an attempt to strip a community of its cultural foundation. The idea for the exhibition arose from the need to show that behind every ruin there is a story – architectural, artistic, human – that matters to us,” says Renata Hanynets.

The exhibition was located in the main building of Viadrina University (HG).

The most recent Wiki Loves Monuments photo contest took place in Ukraine in October 2025. The results of the 2025 contest are still being finalized, but you can read about the results of the special category for 2023 and 2024.

“European University Viadrina offers a space for cultural projects and student organisation ASTA can help financially if they consider projects worth attention. I thought that it is a perfect opportunity to show the photos in order to encourage curiosity about the war in Ukraine and current state of cultural heritage. I worked more as a mediator between Wikimedia Ukraine and Viadrina University. I contacted Wikimedia Ukraine to ask for permission to use the photos as well as advice on how to exhibit them better, asked the exhibition coordinator at the Viadrina for a possible time slot and applied for the ASTA individual grant. 

The layout was made during blackouts in Ukraine, but I never heard any complaints from anyone, it was even funny once when I asked for something additional there was a response ‘yes, please tell what you need I have a powerbank for 30 more minutes’. From my side – it took just a few clicks to order printing, collect my order from the post office and only one hour to put the photos into the frames and give them to staff to hang them on the wall…” Renata Hanynets reflected on the organising process.

The exhibition aroused considerable interest among both students and university staff, as well as among the city’s residents. An additional factor in attracting attention was the presence of Chairs at the university, the Entangled history of Ukraine (the only one in Germany) and the Chair of Heritage studies, as well as newly established Competence Network Interdisciplinary Ukrainian Studies Frankfurt (Oder) – Berlin (KIU) which enhances the relevance and sensitivity of this topic. At the same time, the interest is also explained by the fact that since the beginning of the full-scale war, a significant number of refugees from Ukraine have been living in the city.

• You can check the pictures from the exhibition at Wikimedia Commons at Wiki Loves Monuments 2026 in Ukraine/War destroys monuments.

Notes:

1. Following the Russian attack on Lviv, UNESCO issued a statement that they are deeply alarmed and reminded that that cultural property is protected under the 1954 Hague Convention and the 1972 World Heritage Convention, although that statement did not name Russia as a perpetrator. The Ukrainian Institute of National Memory, a government agency, called for Russia’s membership of UNESCO to be revoked adding that “constant attacks on the cultural heritage of Ukraine, which is under UNESCO protection, are a deliberate policy of the Kremlin, aimed at destroying Ukrainian national memory and cultural identity”. ↩︎