Attack on Kharkiv: Russians damage 62 historical heritage facilities in 5 minutes

During one of the largest-scale Russian missile attacks on Kharkiv on 23 January 2024, the Russians bombarded, among other things, the city's historical area. As a result, 62 historic buildings were damaged.

The HeMo: Ukrainian Heritage Monitoring Lab organisation stated that 20 of the damaged buildings are architectural monuments and sites recommended for inclusion in the list of architectural monuments. Around 50 sites were damaged for the first time since the start of the full-scale invasion.

"These statistics make this attack the most extensive in terms of damage of all that our team has documented during the full-scale invasion," said Ivan Shchurko, Head of Expeditionary Unit at HeMo Lab. 

Two districts of the city with dense historical buildings were hit: 

• Zalopan district, where houses dating back to the 18th and 19th centuries are located;
• the central part of Kharkiv, with buildings dating back to the late 19th and early 20th centuries. 

The building of the National Academy of Legal Sciences of Ukraine, built in 1896 by Serhii Zahoskin for the merchant Hermann Helferich, brother of the famous industrialist Maximilian Helferich, sustained the most damage. 

"The explosion resulted in the collapse of the roof, attic floor structures, floors of the first and second floors, the collapse of walls and partitions of the central part of the first and second floors, as well as fragments of the walls of the first floor.

A fire broke out. The collapses destroyed the interior decoration," says Viktor Dvornikov, regional coordinator of Heritage Monitoring Lab expeditions in Kharkiv and Kharkiv Oblast.

In total, 62 cultural heritage sites have damaged glazing, and more than 35 have damaged interior decoration, roofs, and structural cracks, which will have an impact on the further destruction of these sites due to the progression of cracking and the impact of rainfall.

The damaged buildings also include facilities important for the social and cultural life of the city, such as the National Academy of Legal Sciences of Ukraine, the Annunciation Cathedral, the Regional Organisational and Methodological Centre for Culture and Art, the Kharkiv Medical Society, etc. 

Background: The Russian missile attack on Kharkiv on 23 January claimed the lives of ten people.

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