Ukraine and Italy have signed the Rome Manifesto, which outlines the challenges of protecting cultural heritage during wartime and calls on international partners to strengthen their support for Ukraine in this area.
This was announced by Minister of Culture and Strategic Communications of Ukraine Mykola Tochytskyi in a comment to Ukrinform during the Ukraine Recovery Conference in Rome.
“Today, together with my Italian counterpart, we have signed the Rome Manifesto, which identifies key problems and includes an appeal to our partners to step up efforts to support the Heritage Protection Fund. I hope the Fund will be legally established in the near future. Today, we’ll also announce its creation,” said Tochytskyi.
According to him, seven countries have already expressed willingness to contribute at least 1 million EUR each to the fund.
Tochytskyi also announced the launch of a coalition of culture ministers, which will help Ukraine to evacuate cultural assets from combat zones, create dual-use shelters to protect artifacts, and identify and repatriate cultural heritage illegally taken to the Russian Federation.
The minister reminded that 1.7 million Ukrainian artifacts are currently under Russian occupation.
As previously reported, the Ministry of Culture and Strategic Communications had planned to establish a Cultural Heritage Protection Fund to provide additional funding for the sector.
Source: Ukraine, Italy sign Rome Manifesto to protect cultural heritage during war
