Verification within Meta’s Third-Party Fact-Checking Program
A video, allegedly from UNESCO, is being circulated online. It claims that Ukraine has destroyed more monuments than the Taliban in Afghanistan — 5,400 monuments to cultural figures and cultural heritage sites over two years. Mechtild Rössler, director of the UNESCO World Heritage Center, allegedly said: “This attitude to monuments and history is typical of terrorist regimes, but not of European civilization.”
However, this is fake. UNESCO has not published such a video on its official resources. Mechtild Rössler is no longer the director of UNESCO and did not make such a statement. The video was created from photos from open sources unrelated to each other.
Screenshot of the post
UNESCO did not publish such a video on its official website, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and YouTube. Mechtild Rössler is no longer the director of the UNESCO World Heritage Center. Lazare Eloundou Assomo currently holds this position. Instead, Mechthild Rössler works for the German National Commission for UNESCO. Rössler did not make a statement about the violations in Ukraine.
A reverse photo search on Google showed that propagandists used photos from open sources for the fake video. In particular, a photo with Taliban militants was published on the official website of AFP in August 2024.
A photo of the dismantling of the People’s Friendship Monument in Kyiv was published on Reuters’s official website in April 2022.
In addition, it is Russia that destroys Ukrainian cultural sites with constant missile and drone attacks. UNESCO has condemned Russia’s full-scale invasion and targeted destruction of Ukrainian cultural heritage. As of November 27, 2024, UNESCO confirmed that during the full-scale war, Russia damaged at least 468 cultural heritage sites in Ukraine. According to the Ministry of Culture, 1,222 cultural heritage sites were damaged by Russian aggression.
Since July 2023, Ukraine has had a law condemning and prohibiting propaganda of Russian imperial policy and decolonizing place names. In particular, monuments that reflect Russian imperial policy must be dismantled. During the year of implementation of the law, 1066 monuments and memorials were dismantled.
Earlier, we refuted the fake that Ukraine had agreed with UNESCO to transfer the holy relics from the Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra.
Attention
The authors do not work for, consult to, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and have no relevant affiliations
