Ukraine and Italy sign Rome Manifesto for cultural heritage protection – Tochytskyi
Ukraine and Italy have signed the Rome Manifesto, which outlines the challenges of preserving cultural heritage during wartime and calls on international partners to strengthen support for Ukraine in this area.
According to Censor.NET citing Ukrinform, Culture and Strategic Communications Minister Mykola Tochytskyi made this statement during the International Conference on Ukraine’s Reconstruction in Rome.
"Today, together with my Italian colleague, we signed the Rome Manifesto, which outlines key issues and calls on our partners to increase efforts to fund the Cultural Heritage Protection Fund. I hope this Fund will be legally established soon. Its creation will be announced today," Tochytskyi said.
He noted that seven countries are already ready to pledge contributions of 1 million euros or more to the Fund.
Additionally, he announced the formation of a coalition of culture ministers to assist Ukraine in evacuating cultural valuables from combat zones, creating dual-purpose storage facilities for artifacts, and identifying and returning cultural heritage illegally taken to the Russian Federation.
Tochytskyi reminded that 1.7 million Ukrainian artifacts remain under Russian occupation.
Recall that Russian occupiers have looted over 1.7 million units of Ukrainian cultural heritage from occupied territories. The occupiers are currently trafficking Ukrainian artifacts on the black market.
