The Russians shelled the Kherson region 78 times a day, two people were killed

On Saturday, February 25, Russian troops shelled the Kherson region 78 times, using rocket launchers, artillery, mortars, tanks and drones.

This was reported by the Kherson Regional Military Administration.

In particular, the occupiers attacked Kherson 13 times. Enemy shells hit residential buildings and the territory of one of the enterprises.

As a result of Russian aggression, two people died in the region within a day, and seven more were injured of various degrees of severity.

On February 25, the Kherson Regional Military Administration reported the death of two people in the region due to a Russian mine explosion. Another man was hospitalized after he stepped on a stretcher in Kherson.

Russian occupation forces continue to terrorize the civilian population of Kherson Region. In just one day, the enemy attacked the region 78 times, killing two civilians.

This was reported by the press service of the Kherson regional military administration.

Consequences of enemy attacks

On February 25, the occupiers terrorized the Kherson region with MLRS, mortars, artillery, tanks and unmanned aerial vehicles. In total, during the day, the enemy carried out 78 attacks on the region, 13 of which fell on Kherson.

The occupiers shelled the residential quarters of the city. In particular, enemy shells were aimed at residential buildings and the territory of the enterprise.

Currently, it is known about the death of two civilians of the Kherson region, seven more were injured.

It will be recalled that on the night of February 26, the Russian occupation forces struck another blow on the Nikopol district of the Dnipropetrovsk region. There were no casualties, but many houses were damaged.

According to the Kherson Regional Military Administration, Russian invaders attacked Kherson region 78 times in the past day.

As noted, the peaceful settlements of the region were shelled with MLRS, mortars, artillery, tanks and UAVs.

“Kherson was attacked by the Russian army 13 times – they ransacked the residential quarters of the city. Enemy shells were aimed at residential buildings and the territory of the enterprise,” the report says.

Yesterday, 2 people were killed and 7 people were injured of varying degrees of severity in the Kherson region due to Russian aggression.

The morning of Sunday, February 26 in Kherson began with explosions.

Loud noises heard in the regional center are reported by local communities.

An air alert has not been declared in the city and region.

Local and regional authorities have not yet provided information about the morning explosions.

Instead, as the head of the city’s military administration, Galina Lugova, reported in a comment to host Jani Brenzei on the broadcast of the nationwide telethon, the occupiers injured six people in Kherson that night.

Four of them were hospitalized. Fortunately, there are no casualties.

From midnight to six in the morning, the enemy struck the city 30 times.

During the shelling, the Russians damaged the local CHP. 41,000 subscribers (600 houses) remained without heat.

The robbery of the Kherson museums is an example of the most serious violations of international humanitarian law committed by the Russian Federation against the cultural values ​​of Ukraine. The occupiers took away the collection of the local history museum alone in 70 trucks. What fate awaits the valuables stolen in Kherson? Serhiy Dyachenko, a well-known Kherson region museum specialist and local historian, told about this.

The occupiers took the most valuable things from the Kherson regional museum of local history: collections of weapons, coins, orders and medals, icons, and partly archaeological exhibits. All this was probably moved to the territory of the temporarily occupied Crimea, to the museum-reserve “Khersones Tavriyskyi” in Sevastopol.

Most of the funds of the Kherson Regional Art Museum named after Shovkunenko was looted under the slogan “evacuation for the preservation of cultural heritage”: in particular, the works of domestic and Western European masters of the XVII-XX centuries. taken to the Central Tavrida Museum in Simferopol. The building of the Kherson Art Museum itself was damaged by Russian troops with systematic shelling already after the deoccupation – it is worth noting that the building is an architectural monument and is located in the city center next to purely civilian objects.

According to the legislation of Ukraine, all these actions fall under the provisions of Article 438 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine (“Violation of the Laws and Customs of War”) and can be classified as war crimes.

What is the near future for the cultural values ​​exported from Kherson? We talked about this with Serhiy Dyachenko, an active member of the Ukrainian National Committee of ICOMOS (International Council for the Protection of Monuments and Historical Sites), a member of the National Union of Architects of Ukraine. For 14 years, he worked at the Kherson Museum of Local Lore, for 2 years he was the chief custodian at the city’s Art Museum, and built several exhibitions in the Skadovsky and Bilozersky district museums. Currently, he is a trainer of the international ICСROM program on rescuing museum collections in case of emergencies, an expert of the public organization “Fund for the Support of Fundamental Research”.

– The liberation of Kherson from the Russians happened relatively quickly, so they very quickly, barbarically, in cooperation with collaborators, took away the collections. Hasn’t all this become an additional threat to the loss of our museum objects forever?

– They not only quickly loaded, but also transported 270 kilometers from Kherson to Simferopol in any way, under fire. I think that under such conditions, some of the museum artifacts were definitely lost, and in addition, some of them could have been looted during transportation. Expect something to hit the black market soon. Looted cultural values ​​are in more or less “protected conditions” only after registration in a new repository. However, it is likely that the Simferopol Museum will not be the last refuge for the collection of the Kherson Art Museum. No museum in Crimea has the resources to process and store such a significant collection. Therefore, new movements cannot be ruled out. And they will again be accompanied by losses.

– At the training “War crimes against the cultural heritage of Ukraine: features of qualification and proof”, you said that the worst option is when the occupiers take away both the collection and the documentation for it. Explain why documentation is so important?

– The fact is that when there is a threat of occupation, the first thing museum workers do (at least they should do) is to evacuate the most valuable objects, and also close the information available on the Internet about museums and their collections.

If it was not possible to take it out, then they try to hide the most valuable thing on the spot together with the museum documentation, because it determines the value of anything, without it the museum object is worthless. Therefore, I argue that the most critical scenario is when the occupiers manage to get their hands on both the collection and the documentation. In most cases, it is the information about the item that is its added value. These are, for example, attribution documents for the authenticity of a work of art, its authorship, or the commemorativeness of an object – for example, an ordinary inkwell, but which belonged to Taras Shevchenko.

 The Kherson Art Museum is being looted by the Russian occupiers. From October 31 to November 3, they took out works of art and office equipment in trucks and school buses, there was no question of a delicate attitude to rarities – the paintings were wrapped in rags.

Unfortunately, for the most part, our museums kept records in paper form and very rarely duplicated them in electronic form. The loss of paper accounting materials means, in addition to various attributive information, also the loss of information about the origin of this object, that is, about the legality of the museum’s possession of this object of cultural heritage, which is confirmed by the act of transfer.

It should be understood that the reconciliation of objects and documentation is a painstaking process, it lasts for months and years, and therefore it is extremely important for us not to contribute to this work of the invaders in any way. It is about the sources of information about the identification of works of art and museum exhibits in the information space.

– Why should information about museum collections be closed? What does this affect, please explain in more detail?

– From the number of mentions in the information space, the market value of museum objects physically increases – this is on the one hand. On the other hand, not all museum institutions will agree to keep illuminated items from their collections, they will try to transfer them to others. This is also a bad option, because dispersing the whole collection greatly reduces the possibility of its return.

There is a rule from the international experience of saving collections in emergency situations: as soon as looting occurs during an armed conflict or a natural disaster, any information about the museum collection should be completely closed. All further work on determining losses, identifying them in other places is carried out strictly confidentially. Data leakage is unacceptable.

– How many Ukrainian museums have a complete electronic duplicate catalog of their collections?

– I think that, unfortunately, there are only a few. The Kherson Art Museum duplicated the entry book and the inventory book in full in electronic form. But the Kherson Museum of Local Lore is not. The inventory book is the main document of registration of the museum’s collection, in it the object of the collection falls into its storage group. Painting, for example, is coded with the letter “Ж”, sculpture – “C”, books – “K”, decorative and applied art – “DUM” and so on. In the inventory book, the item receives an inventory number, it is applied to the storage item. If it is, say, a picture, then on the reverse side of the picture frame, and so that the number cannot be separated from the object.

The entry book is a document of the first level of registration of the object of storage. It registers in chronological order any new item of the collection, approved for admission by the Museum Council (if it exists). The introductory book is universal, because all the objects of the collection are recorded there, but the descriptions are given briefly and often with the primary attribution, which can be clarified in the future, may change.

There are many other nuances of museum accounting. I once calculated that in order to convert the stock books of the Kherson Regional History Museum into electronic form, 10 people and 10 years of daily work would be needed in addition to the staff.  We are talking about a census of 300,000 items of the collection by various specific groups, which can only be done by specialists from these groups, not anyone.

– What predictions can be made regarding the near future of collections from Kherson museums?

– Mostly disappointing. The loss of accompanying scientific documentation turns the transferred collections into a sense of “scientific junk” for the receiving party. It will take years to restore the information.

The Russian occupiers will either preserve the Kherson collections in special premises until the creation of new museum structures with a separate staff, or they will end up on the black market. Accordingly, the possibility of returning these cultural values ​​to Ukraine will decrease.

On the other hand, the loss of accounting documentation will make the work of our specialists extremely difficult. In this case, people who worked and know these collections, as well as experts from separate groups of collections (archeology, weapons, numismatics, painting, etc.) are very important.

In any case, restoring information about the collections will be an easier process for Ukraine than for the enemy. Physically, we have more information, including duplications in higher management, we have more competent employees who are more familiar with the local context.