7 months of Russia’s full-scale attack: 270 religious sites ruined in Ukraine

The noticeable increase in the number of damaged structures since the publication of the previous release is due to the fact that DESS received detailed information about destroyed and damaged structures from the Religious Center of Jehovah’s Witnesses in Ukraine. DEES asks religious communities to send them information about buildings destroyed or damaged as a result of Russian military aggression.

The monitoring is conducted by the State Service of Ukraine for Ethnic Affairs and Freedom of Conscience (DESS) in cooperation with the Workshop for the Academic Study of Religion. Visit our interactive map for geographical visualization of the affected sites and details regarding each of them.

The full list of ruined sites of Ukraine’s religious communities is available in Ukrainian.

5 of the 270 sites damaged by the Russian attack are Muslim, 5 Jewish, the other 260 Christian.

30 of the sites affected belong to various Protestant communities, 21 to the Orthodox Church of Ukraine (OCU), 4 to the Roman Catholic Church, 3 to the Greek Catholic Church and 66 to the Jehovah’s Witnesses.

52% (136 sites) of all 260 Christian sites that got fully or partially ruined by the Russian attack belong to the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (UOC).

The largest number of damaged religious sites are in Donetsk (67) and Luhansk (58) regions followed by Kyiv (43) and Kharkiv (35) regions.

DESS encourages to send information, including photos, about damages to spiritual sites and other consequences of the Russian invasion into Ukraine for religious communities to [email protected]. You can also reach out to us by mobile: +38 097 705 38 57.

DESS also encourages to register as a witness with evidence on the platform of the Ministry of Culture and Information Policy of Ukraine for documenting Russia’s army war crimes against humanity and cultural heritage: https://culturecrimes.mkip.gov.ua. Click here to view recorded crimes on this platform.