United Nations cultural and satellite agencies have joined forces to systematically track the impact of Russia's invasion on Ukraine's architecture, art, historic buildings and other cultural heritage.
They have compiled an initial list of more than 200 sites that have been damaged or destroyed.
This includes 88 religious sites, 15 museums, 76 buildings of historical and/or artistic interest, 18 monuments and 10 libraries.
Geneva-based UNOSAT and UNESCO, the Paris-based educational, scientific and cultural agency, announced on Wednesday that they were finalising a database of cultural sites that compares before-and-after images bought from private-sector satellite companies.
These would be used to inform experts in a first phase and eventually the wider public about the devastation wreaked on Ukraine's heritage.
"It's important for us to document the damage, but also to make sure we have the information available before the recovery," said Krista Pikkat, who heads the culture and emergencies department at UNESCO.
She said early work began months ago.
"We actually realised that, this wealth of information, we needed to put it on a platform for our experts so that we can monitor the situation," she said.
Among the sites listed was the Mariupol theatre, where Ukrainian authorities said about 1,000 people had sought shelter as Russian forces destroyed the city.
On March 16, an attack was carried out on the theatre, despite the fact the word "children" had been written in enormous letters on the ground outside to indicate young families were sheltering there.
Damage was also recorded at the Holy Mountains Lavra of the Holy Dormition also known as Sviatohirsk Cave Monastery.
The monastery is believed to date to the 15th century.
Repeated strikes on the area have left damage to parts of the complex and injured several refugees sheltering in the monastery.
While, as of Wednesday, some 207 sites were listed, none of Ukraine's seven UNESCO World Heritage Sites — a listing of some of the world's greatest cultural artefacts and heritage — had been affected.
Building on systems already used in places like Syria, UNESCO said it first tracked Ukrainian culture ministry alerts about damage to cultural sites.
Then, it cross-checked those findings with social media and other sources, and then — if warranted — called on UNOSAT to try to get relevant satellite pictures.
Weather, namely cloud cover, could hamper the effort.
The sites with verified damage are plotted on a digital map — with virtual red pins to mark the impact spots — and are included in a searchable database to help experts trace the devastation.
Ultimately, cultural experts from UNESCO and their associates strive to visit the sites to get a first-hand look, often a tough if not impossible task in a war zone.
Areas like Mariupol in the south, the region around the capital Kyiv, and the eastern Donetsk region were littered with red dots in a demonstration of the database on Wednesday.
UNESCO experts have had no access to areas held by Russian forces or Russian-backed separatists, such as in Mariupol — whose battered remains fell into Russian control after a desperate holdout by Ukrainian forces earlier this year.
The joint effort amounts to the latest step in the painstaking process by many UN and other national and international organisations to keep tabs on the fallout since President Vladimir Putin ordered Russian forces to invade on February 24.
The hunt for the impact on culture adds to efforts by prosecutors, human rights experts, refugee agencies and others to document the devastation from the conflict on lives and livelihoods.
ABC/AP
