Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has taken the lives of tens of thousands of soldiers and civilians, and unleashed the most severe humanitarian and refugee crisis in Europe since World War II. It has also dealt a grievous blow to Ukrainian culture: to its museums and monuments, its grand universities and rural libraries, its historic churches and contemporary mosaics.

Since the invasion in February, The New York Times’s Visual Investigations team has been tracking evidence of cultural destruction across Ukraine. By assessing hundreds of photos and videos from social media and Ukrainian government databases, analyzing satellite imagery and speaking to witnesses, we have identified and independently verified 339 sites nationwide that sustained substantial damage. Nearly half are in the mineral-rich eastern region known as the Donbas, where a war has been ongoing since 2014, and where the Ukrainians have recently recaptured villages and towns that fell under Russian occupation. These documented cases represent only a partial picture of the devastation, with much of what is still unaccounted for believed lost.

Libraries, architectural treasures, statues, churches, houses of culture, museums, cinemas, sports facilities, theaters and archaeological sites have been damaged or destroyed. About 180 sites have sustained structural damage requiring at least partial reconstruction, including churches with collapsed steeples or statues missing pieces. And in at least 77 cases, cultural buildings, collections and objects have been completely destroyed.

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