Kate Harrell

This report describes the potential damage to cultural heritage sites in Ukraine that occurred between 24 February 2022 and 30 September 2022. 1 In total, potential damage to 1,562 out of more than 28,400 cultural heritage sites in Ukraine has been identified. This reflects an increase of 61 sites from the previous report that covered the period ending 31 August 2022. Overall, damage has occurred primarily in the raions of Mariupolskyi, Sievierodonetskyi, Kharkivskyi, Kramatorskyi, and Buchanskyi. The cultural heritage site types most likely to be damaged during the conflict so far include Memorial/Monument, and Place of Worship and Burial. Background: Cultural heritage in conflict is primarily protected by international law under the 1954 Hague Convention, which was adopted in response to the cultural destruction witnessed during World War II. The Convention, to which Russia and Ukraine are member states, obligates State

In a previous report produced under the umbrella of the Conflict Observatory (Bassett et al. 2022a), collaborative research by the Cultural Heritage Monitoring Lab (CHML) and Smithsonian Cultural Rescue Initiative (SCRI) identified over 458 potential impacts to cultural heritage sites across Ukraine following the Russian invasion of February 2022. For the purposes of this report, cultural heritage includes archaeological sites, arts centers, monuments, memorials, museums, places of worship, libraries, and archives. Damage to 104 sites has since been confirmed through analysis of high-resolution satellite imagery and a review of open-source news and social media. With additional contributions from the University of Maryland's Center for International Development & Conflict Management (CIDCM), this report presents satellite imagery of 10 sites with recent damage that cannot be explained by proximity to potential military targets.

This report describes the potential damage to cultural heritage sites in Ukraine that occurred between 24 February 2022 and 31 August 2022. 1 In total, potential damage to 1,501 out of 28,401 cultural heritage sites in Ukraine has been identified. Damage has occurred primarily in the raions of Mariupolskyi, Kharkivskyi, Sievierodonetskyi, Kramatorskyi, and Buchanskyi. The types of cultural heritage sites most likely to be damaged include Memorial/Monument, and Place of Worship and Burial. Background: Cultural heritage in conflict is primarily protected by international law under the 1954 Hague Convention, which was adopted in response to the cultural destruction witnessed during World War II. The Convention, to which Russia and Ukraine are member states, obligates State Parties to "respect" and "safeguard" cultural property in the event of armed conflict. Following Russia's invasion of Ukraine on

Monitoring impacts to cultural heritage during armed conflict or natural disaster has often relied on priority lists. These lists rank cultural properties by relative importance. While born from practical motivations, cultural heritage monitoring based on priority lists often fosters structural biases, selective preservation, and assumptions of shared values of significance. Recent cultural heritage monitoring efforts have taken an alternative approach that moves beyond prioritization. Rather than monitoring the highest priorities on a list of sites, this alternative approach uses technology to monitor many cultural properties simultaneously. Of the impacted sites identified using this alternative approach, only a small number would have been ranked on traditional priority lists. This includes sites of local significance, representations of regional or ethnic diversity, recent heritage sites, and rural heritage. In this essay, we advance a no-priority monitoring model, in which prioritization occurs at the intervention phase, rather than serving as the starting place. Eliminating prioritization as a starting place minimizes the potential for unobserved impacts, and as a result, the implicit decisions that must be made toward mitigating those impacts. We demonstrate the current value of this approach in monitoring cultural heritage in Ukraine.

This report summarizes confirmed impacts to cultural heritage sites due to the armed conflict in Ukraine between February and June 2022. All impact confirmations were made by the Cultural Heritage Monitoring Lab (CHML). CHML's methodology for the confirmation process relies on analysis of high-resolution commercial satellite imagery (access supplied by NGA). In total, CHML analysts confirmed conflict-related impacts to 108 cultural sites throughout Ukraine between 24 February and 30 June 2022.

This report summarizes confirmed impacts to cultural heritage sites due to the conflict in Ukraine between July and August 2022 by the Cultural Heritage Monitoring Lab (CHML). The methodology for the confirmation process relies on analysis of high-resolution commercial satellite imagery which has been supplied by CHML's partnership with NGA. In total, CHML analysts confirmed conflict-related impacts to 99 cultural sites between 1 July 2022 and 31 August 2022, totaling 207 since 24 February 2022.

The USACAPOC Military Government Specialist (38G) program was established with the mission of supporting the six core competencies of USACAPOC by “provid[ing] CA the capability to conduct responsibilities normally performed by civil governments and emergency services organizations.” Civilian subject matter experts (SMEs) within 38G’s 18 skill identifiers encompass a range of civil sectors needed to “fill key planning, operations, and liaison roles” in matters of security, justice and reconciliation, humanitarian assistance and social well-being, governance and participation, and economic stabilization and infrastructure. The focus of 38G activities has generally been viewed as reactionary and focused on post-conflict governance and response. Yet with “the increasing inseparability of civilian and military spheres,” a sustained effort on data production, “digital civil reconnaissance,” and monitoring in the respective fields of 38G will be required to counter malign influence and compete as a partner of choice across civil sectors.

This paper advances a civil-military solution to the evolving operational environment in the form of applied research labs, housed within partnered civilian institutions to support the range of skill identifiers within 38G.  The magnitude of the grey zone threat and the need to support emergency operations like HA/DR both necessitate sustained research, data production, civil sector monitoring, and methodological innovation to support and empower 38G officers.  The applied research lab supporting CA efforts fills a gap that currently exists in force structure and time. Confronted with a new and ever changing OE, the data and information production demands that will be placed on 38G officers cannot be solely fulfilled through battle assembly.

To demonstrate this concept, the authors provide a case study on the Cultural Heritage Monitoring Lab (CHML) at the Virginia Museum of Natural History, a partner of the Smithsonian Cultural Rescue Initiative (SCRI), the institutional partner of 38G/6V (Heritage & Preservation). In August 2021, CHML leveraged Synthetic Aperture Radar data to model impacts to cultural heritage in the city of Les Cayes, Haiti, due to a magnitude 7.2 earthquake.  Without CHML’s digital civil reconnaissance, ground teams would have had to populate the list of damaged sites and buildings on foot, a dangerous and time-consuming operation. The CHML response to Haiti served as a demonstration of the applied research lab’s abilities and response time that we foresee for future Civil Affairs operations. The long term strategic success of CA activities in an increasingly civilian operating environment may in large part depend on their implementation.