"The year 2025 will be a year of preservation and resilience. It is crucial to ensure that no crime against cultural heritage goes unpunished. The Russian Empire has always appropriated our history and sought to destroy our culture, and thereby – our identity. By the third year of Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine, it has become clear that culture is a key element of our national security," he wrote.
According to the minister, "the cultural aspect has proven to be as important as the military or economic ones, as national identity, self-awareness, and the resilience of the people are formed through culture."
"It is evident that Russian aggression is aimed not only at territorial conquest but also at the destruction of Ukrainian cultural heritage, language, and identity, making the cultural dimension one of the key aspects of this war," Tóchitsky stated.
He noted that the war has destroyed many monuments, but Ukrainians will do everything possible to restore and preserve them.
"Digitization of heritage and creating conditions to protect historical monuments is not just about the present. It is an investment in the future," emphasized Tóchitsky.
According to him, the Russian Federation "is implementing a policy of complete and irreversible" integration of new territories into the RF "through the partial extermination of Ukrainians as a nation and their Russification."
"To achieve this, the aggressor country deliberately destroys and plunders Ukraine's cultural heritage. Within this policy, the RF organizes and conducts illegal archaeological excavations, destroying cultural layers, seizing cultural values, and relocating them beyond the temporarily occupied Ukrainian territories. Just think about it: we are talking not about thousands or even tens of thousands, but about approximately 2 million museum exhibits that remain in the temporarily occupied territories," the minister wrote.
He believes it is essential to guarantee that no crime against cultural heritage goes unpunished.
"For this, it is necessary to document the crimes, impose sanctions on those responsible, while simultaneously tracking the stolen values around the world and conducting criminal investigations in various jurisdictions," Tóchitsky explained.