Saving Ukrainian Cultural Heritage in Wartimes

More than four years of Russia’s full-scale war against Ukraine have fundamentally transformed the realities of protecting cultural heritage. Heritage professionals have had to secure collections, document sites at risk, respond to damage and continue to work under extraordinarily difficult conditions – while the threats keep escalating.

This panel brings together three perspectives on this experience. Skeiron , a Ukrainian team based in Lviv specialising in 3D documentation, creates precise digital records of endangered heritage and explores how this data can support research, preservation and public engagement. The Ukraine Art Aid Center has developed a model of sustained emergency response, mobilising support from the German Federal Foreign Office and other public and private partners to address needs on the ground, having so far supported more than 1000 cultural institutions across Ukraine. Poland’s National Institute of Cultural Heritage contributes the experience and lessons of cross-border support since 2022.

Michal Krasucki, Yurii Prepodobnyi and Johannes Nathan will discuss what has proved effective, how needs have changed, where gaps remain, and what Ukraine’s experience can teach us about protecting heritage during an ongoing war. The discussion will be moderated by Prof. Tanja Zimmermann, an art historian specialising in Eastern Europe at Leipzig University , who will bring a broader European perspective to the insights of the three panelists.

Schedule

10:15 hrs: Welcome by Messe Leipzig & Introductory Remarks by Federal Foreign Office of Germany (tbc)

Presentations

- 10:30 hrs: Michal Krasucki (National Institute for Cultural Heritage, Warsaw)

- 10:40 hrs: Yurii Prepodobnyi (Skeiron LLC, Lviv)

- 10:50 hrs: Johannes Nathan (Ukraine Art Aid Center e.V., Berlin)

11:00 hrs: Panel Discussion with the three speakers, moderated by Tanja Zimmermann (University of Leipzig)