25/03/2022 15:21

Commissioner: Russian occupiers are not just destroying books, they are trying to destroy our cultural and national identity

Following the worst traditions of Nazism, the racist occupiers confiscate and destroy Ukrainian literature and history textbooks in the occupied territories of Ukraine because of their inconsistency with the ideology of Kremlin propaganda.

The so-called "military police" units confiscate Ukrainian historical and fiction literature from the libraries of the temporarily occupied territories of Luhansk, Donetsk, Chernihiv and Sumy regions.  Found books are destroyed on the spot or taken away in an unknown direction.

Books about the history of Ukrainian Maidans, antiterrorist operation, and the Ukrainian liberation struggle are subject to liquidation.  Even school textbooks on the history of Ukraine, scientific and popular historical literature were included in the "extremist" literature.  The names of Mazepa, Petliura, Bandera, Shukhevych, and Chornovil are forbidden to be mentioned.

Today, the russian occupiers are destroying more than just books.  They are trying to destroy cultural and national identity, our millennial history of Ukraine.

The actions of the racist horde are a gross violation of the Convention for the Protection of Cultural Property in the Event of Armed Conflict, the Convention for the Protection of Cultural and Natural Heritage and the Convention on Measures to Prohibit and Prevent Illicit Import, Export and Transfer of Cultural Property.

I ask the international community and our partners to take these circumstances into account when deciding to impose additional sanctions on the Russian Federation to immediately end neo-Nazi racist activities and hostilities in Ukraine.