Russian Strike Damages Lviv’s UNESCO-Listed Historic Center, Intensifying Scrutiny of Russia’s Venice Biennale Return
A Russian strike on March 24 damaged a 17th-century Bernardine monastery complex in the historic center of Lviv, a UNESCO World Heritage Site that has been on the organization’s List of World Heritage in Danger since 2023. The attack hit the monastery’s church devoted to St. Andrew, a Mannerist building associated with Italian architects, in a city center long prized for the continuity of its medieval plan and later architectural layers.
UNESCO said Wednesday it was “deeply alarmed” by the strike. Without naming a perpetrator, the agency emphasized that cultural property is protected under international law, citing the 1954 Hague Convention and the 1972 World Heritage Convention.
Lviv’s historic center was added to the World Heritage List in 1998. UNESCO has described the area as “preserved virtually intact,” noting the presence of “many fine Baroque and later buildings” alongside older structures. The 2023 decision to place the site on the endangered list reflected the heightened risk to cultural heritage amid Russia’s ongoing war in Ukraine.
The damage in Lviv arrives as Russia’s participation in the upcoming edition of the Venice Biennale faces renewed pressure. The Biennale is set to welcome a Russian pavilion for the first time since the war began, a move that has drawn criticism from Ukrainian officials and some European stakeholders.
Ukrainian minister of foreign affairs Andrii Sybiha used the strike to call on the Biennale’s organizers to reconsider. In a post addressing @la_Biennale, he wrote: “Don’t look away, @la_Biennale. This is the ugly face of barbaric Russia — destroyed UNESCO World Heritage in the protected center of Lviv. This is the barbarism you wish to normalize at the Biennale. Get real!”
The European Union has also signaled that the pavilion could carry financial consequences, saying it could pull funding from the exhibition if the Russian pavilion goes ahead.
Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy condemned the attack in an address, linking the strike to the drones used. “Iranian ‘Shahed’ drones, modernized by Russia, are striking a church in Lviv,” he said. “This is an absolute perversion, and only someone like Putin could find this appealing.”
The strike was part of a broader escalation in aerial attacks. Reports described nearly 1,000 drones deployed across Ukraine, with more than 550 hitting central and western parts of the country. At least three people were reported killed and dozens injured.
Since the early months of Russia’s full-scale invasion in 2022, cultural heritage has been repeatedly caught in the crosshairs. As of May 9, 2022, UNESCO had verified damage to 127 landmarks in Ukraine, including 11 museums, 54 religious buildings, and 15 monuments. Ukrainian officials have also alleged that Russian troops looted more than 2,000 artworks from three cultural institutions in Mariupol, the battered port city that became a symbol of the war’s devastation.
The latest damage in Lviv underscores a central tension now shaping cultural diplomacy in Europe: as international art events weigh questions of participation and representation, the physical vulnerability of heritage sites on the ground continues to sharpen the stakes.
