In times of violent conflict, how can a country's cultural heritage be preserved?
This is a familiar issue in places such as Iraq, Afghanistan and Syria where monumental ancient ruins and sites, such as Palmyra and Aleppo's old city, have been extensively damaged by war.
And now, as Russia attacks Ukraine, historic museums and architecture are being bombed.
"We have museum buildings destroyed, with all collections turned into ashes — it's quite a barbaric situation," curator and art historian Konstantin Akinsha tells ABC RN's Sunday Extra.
"[The] other side of the problem is that in little towns which are occupied by Russians, we have the first cases of random looting of museums."
Recently, Scythian gold artefacts dating back to the fourth century BC were stolen from a museum in Melitopol in southern Ukraine.
Ukrainian officials say Russian soldiers accompanied an unknown expert "in a white coat", who carefully extracted the ancient gold artefacts from cardboard boxes hidden in the museum's cellar.
"This is one of the largest and most expensive collections in Ukraine, and today we don't know where they took it," Melitopol mayor Ivan Fedorov said at the time.
Living in the cellars to protect the art
Mr Akinsha is an expert on the cultural destruction and looting that happened during World War II. Now he's "reliving" what he learned "in real time".
The art historian has been in regular contact with artists and curators in Ukraine during the conflict.
He says many museum directors have been unable to evacuate their art collections to other parts of the country in time.
Moving them outside of Ukraine would be highly political and would require permission from national authorities. This has meant some of those looking after art have been forced to pack up the collections and live in the museums' cellars.
"Directors cannot leave the building because [they will need to] return at night in case something happens," he says.
According to Ukrainian officials, more than 250 cultural institutions had been damaged or destroyed.
That has included 25 artworks by Ukrainian folk art painter artist Maria Prymachenko, which were stored in the Ivankiv Museum near the capital Kyviv. The artworks are believed to have been lost when the museum was destroyed by Russian bombing at the beginning of the invasion.
And while some artworks can be moved or hidden, others such as big sculptures or monuments simply cannot be safeguarded.
For example, Babyn Yar, a Holocaust memorial complex on the outskirts of Kyiv was damaged in early March when Russian troops launched a missile strike on a TV tower next to the monument. Babyn Yar is the site of one of the largest mass graves in Europe, where more than 30,000 Jews were killed by Nazis in September 1941.
Five civilians were killed in the Russian attack, which was described as barbaric by the Ukrainian foreign ministry.
Protecting fragile artefacts
Sandra Bialystok is the communications and partnerships officer for ALIPH Foundation, the international alliance that works to protect cultural heritage during conflict and post conflict.
She says since the start of the war, their teams have been in touch with cultural heritage professionals and museum directors in the Ukraine. They have sent crates, packing material and fireproof blankets to institutions to help protect collections and respond to their needs.
"Unfortunately, [ALIPH was] founded to respond to crises such as what we're seeing in Ukraine today," Ms Bialystok says.
But protecting art collections isn't as simple as packing up and storing items in the appropriate boxes.
"The storage facilities themselves need to be up to standard … [they] need to have proper humidity control, be away from the elements and the packing boxes need to be of a certain calibre in order to protect the artefacts because these artefacts are, of course, precious and fragile," she says.
In the past, they've worked in places like the Sahel, Timbuktu, Iraq and Afghanistan supporting projects to rehabilitate and protect monuments, sites, museums and collections.
But it's a time-consuming task, she says. At times it can take years to complete, particularly when they're working on ancient monuments and sites.
"[The work] needs to be done with scientific accuracy and research and rigour that isn't the case [that's usual in] more modern buildings and constructions," she says.
War crimes and 'collateral damage'
Aparna Tandon works for the International Centre for the Study of the Preservation and Restoration of Cultural Property (ICCROM), which was set up after World War II.
She says the first consideration for those in Ukraine doing this work is to consider their level of personal risk.
"You have to understand what's your risk of … random fire and to be caught up as part of collateral damage," she explains.
"You could be a target; the heritage site could be an intentional target ... and based on that, actions are defined."
International organizations like ICCROM also train military personnel to be aware of their responsibility to protect cultural heritage in times of conflict.
For example, the Hague Convention forbids invading armies from targeting cultural heritage sites.
"As long as it's not part of military necessity … or there are no other activities going on behind it," Ms Tandon says.
"So, informing soldiers and armies about that, and making them aware of their responsibility to protect heritage and in situations of war, I think, is very important."
Konstantin Akinsha adds that preserving cultural heritage is uniting many people in Ukraine, not just artists and museum directors.
"In individual towns and villages attacked by Russians and occupied by Russians, people are trying to save objects from the local museums, hiding them in their houses," he says.
He has heard of villagers salvaging art from a museum near Kyiv before it was burned to the ground.
"Because for them, this heritage is extremely important — it's part of their life," he says.
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