RESCOM: Culture Under Threat – Partnerships, Risks and Opportunities in Ukraine’s Regions

Under the theme "Engage and Activate," RESCOM partners hosted their second Learning Lab, bringing together cultural and community actors from across the Baltic Sea Region and Ukraine. Ukrainian representatives from Khmelnytskyi, Okhtyrka, Nova Kakhovka, and Zhovkva shared insights from communities facing the realities of war, enriching discussions on resilience, engagement, and youth inclusion.

RESCOM Learning Lab - Key Insights:

• Culture is survival infrastructure. It sustains belonging and identity when daily life is shattered.
• Communities, not just territories, are occupied. Heritage lives in people first, not in land or monuments.
• Networks pay off in crisis. Cultural workers active before 2022 became lifelines during the invasion.
• Adaptation is creative. From bomb-shelter galleries to embroidered gifts for newborns, culture carries on.
• Long-term vision matters. Stakeholders chose to complete a cultural strategy rather than divert funds, affirming identity over short-term relief.
• Partnerships must be practical. Tools communities can use matter more than symbolic gestures.
• Dialogue with Russia is out of the question. For Ukrainians, cooperation in culture is impossible so long as Russia continues to erase Ukrainian voices. Furthermore, cultural dialogue with Russia contradicts the very principles of art and humanity as true cultural dialogue cannot exist while one side is destroying the other.
• Humour is allowed. Dark comedy and creative fundraising show resilience in action.

The frontline of belonging

Opening the discussion, Ielizaveta Ievseieva, representing a coalition of NGOs, described how cultural workers and museum staff united from the first days of the full-scale invasion. Their mission is to document crimes against Ukrainian culture - from stolen heritage to destroyed archives - and to prepare legal cases.

In a dialogue with the moderator, the participants noted that they "speak not of occupied territories but of occupied communities. Without people, there is no heritage. As one of today's speakers said, a shell without a snail inside is useless, i.e. it has nothing to preserve."

For Ms Ievseieva, culture is inseparable from survival: the loss of human connection - families divided, lives cut short - is as grave a crime as the destruction of monuments. Yet she stressed that pre-war cultural networks repaid themselves 'a thousand percent': cultural actors stayed loyal, kept working, and even organised evacuations from occupied zones.

Embroidery and exile: continuity from Luhansk

From exile, Iryna Herasymchuk, representing Chmyrivka community of the Luhansk region, brought the flag of her hometown - sunflower and corn - symbols of fertility now cut off by occupation. She introduced a 2025 ethnographic volume on Luhansk embroidery, wearing an embroidered shirt created by artist Yuliia Khatsanovska from Chmyrivka.

Khatsanovska's current projects bring embroidery into life's most fragile moments: handmade garments for newborns in maternity wards and for wounded soldiers recovering in hospitals.

"Russians took our land; we cannot harvest. But the people kept the culture - and in some ways, it grows even faster now."

Iryna explained that the symbolism of embroidery - red for fire, blue for air - goes back to Scythian burials. Traditionally, a bride prepared twelve embroidered towels before marriage. Such traditions, she said, remain a thread of continuity even in displacement.

Creating under bombardment

Olena Khmelnyk, a cultural leader from Rivne, spoke about adapting to war's impossible conditions.

"It is impossible to get used to war. But we have adapted. We have created cultural spaces in bomb shelters. We opened an art gallery in a hospital basement. Culture became a way not only to grow, but to live."

Her municipality had just secured European Commission support to draft a cultural strategy when the full-scale invasion began. Funders allowed the remaining grant to be repurposed for humanitarian aid. In a remarkable decision, 200 local stakeholders unanimously chose to finish the strategy instead, raising separate funds for relief.

"People were united around values and vision. They did not want to suspend culture. Projects began even before council approval. It wasn't top-down - it was readiness."

For Ms Khmelnyk, the war paradoxically created new opportunities: capacity-building, digitisation of heritage, and small-scale repairs previously beyond reach.

Partnerships that matter

Oleh Volskyi, Mayor of Zhovkva, argued that international partnerships must focus on practical, replicable tools. He also recalled that partners of his city did help them a lot and that they continue to build international partnerships.

Cooperation with Russia? "Out of question."

When an audience member asked whether cultural dialogue with Russian counterparts is possible, the responses were unanimous and emotional.

Tetyana Simchuk, the panel co-moderator, invoked the killing of writer Victoriia Amelina by a Russian missile:

"Culture is a battlefield of values. It is important to remember that art cannot stand apart from politics or from war, especially when Russia continues to kill Ukrainian artists. The majority in Russia accepts or enables this war. Exceptions do not change the rule."

Others pointed to decades of cultural appropriation - Ukrainian figures claimed by Russia - and insisted that reconciliation can only follow accountability and change, not precede it.

Humour and survival

Despite the grimness, panellists insisted on the right to laugh. Stand-up comedians fundraise abroad, sometimes auctioning Kyiv grass for hundreds of euros.

"It may sound strange, but laughter is normal during war. It helps us survive."

Dark humour, they suggested, is itself an art form born of crisis.

A Polish reflection: finally understanding resilience

A Polish participant, living just 100 kilometres from the Ukrainian border, shared that he had recently experienced a drone attack. For the first time, he faced the same uncertainty Ukrainians live with every day - not knowing whether to take his children to school or start packing and flee.

He admitted that, until then, "resilience" had been a vague and almost untranslatable term.

"After hearing you, I finally understand. Resilience is not only endurance - it is the ability to create, to organise, and to dream under impossible conditions."

The exchange ended in an embrace, and with a heartfelt appeal to treat Ukrainians not merely as recipients of aid, but as equals and partners.

What to take away

The panel's message was clear: culture continues, transforms, and saves lives under war. It is not only about monuments but about the bonds that keep communities alive. Ukrainians asked partners not merely for sympathy, but for collaboration on practical, future-oriented cultural work.

As one speaker put it:

"We are strong. We are resilient. And we will win. But even now, culture is one of vital elements that keep us alive."

RESCOM is a platform for mutual learning and exchange of experiences on community resilience between local and regional authorities in the Baltic Sea Region (BSR), Ukraine, and Moldova.

Additional data: As of 25 August 2025, 1,553 cultural heritage sites and 2,388 cultural infrastructure facilities in Ukraine have been damaged or destroyed due to Russian aggression. Of those infrastructure facilities, 481 are completely destroyed. The types of affected cultural infrastructure include: 1,162 creative hubs, 840 libraries, 131 museums/galleries, 49 theatres, cinemas, and philharmonic halls. These were not just buildings - they were somebody's memories, languages, sense of belonging.