Rapid Site Report: Tsentralʹna Biblioteka in Bakhmut, Ukraine

The Tsentralʹna Biblioteka (hereafter, the Bakhmut Central Library) was repeatedly damaged between 1 June 2022 and 26 April 2023. Analysis conducted by the Smithsonian Cultural Rescue Initiative (SCRI), in collaboration with the Penn Cultural Heritage Center at the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology (PennCHC), the Cultural Heritage Monitoring Lab at the Virginia Museum of Natural History (CHML), the Center for International Development and Conflict Management at the University of Maryland (CIDCM), and the Ukrainian Heritage Monitoring Lab (HeMo), confirmed this damage. This review was undertaken after news sources reported damage to a library in Bakhmut during June 2022. Not all damage is visible in commercially available satellite imagery, and the first instance of damage to the Bakhmut Central Library is identifiable in imagery dated 12 October 2022.

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CITE THIS REPORT: Hanson, K., Bender, T. J. P., Fitzgerald, K., Lawrence-Weilmann, J., Rozhko, V., Makar, R., Zadorozhna, M., Oleksii, A., Frolova, Y., Cil, D., Tuttle, E., Bakhshi, R., Aronson. J., Welsh, W., Maher, A., Bassett, H., Gunter-Bassett, M., Muller, C. E., Kane, K. E., Daniels, B. I., Carroll, C., Averyt, K., and Wegener, C. (2024). “Rapid Site Report: Tsentralʹna Biblioteka in Bakhmut, Ukraine,” Virginia Museum of Natural History, Cultural Heritage Monitoring Lab; Ukrainian Heritage Monitoring Lab; University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, Penn Cultural Heritage Center; and Smithsonian Institution, Smithsonian Cultural Rescue Initiative. DOI: 10.25573/data.27555933.