Site-Based Report: Kharkiv Regional Philharmonic Orchestra in Kharkiv, Ukraine

The Kharkiv Regional Philharmonic Orchestra (hereafter, Kharkiv Philharmonic) was impacted by cluster shells in early March 2022. The Kharkiv Philharmonic was one of multiple buildings damaged in an artillery attack on the center of Kharkiv by Russian forces. Prior to this event, the theater was a national cultural center for musical and theatrical performances. Multiple lines of evidence have been used to verify and analyze damage to the Kharkiv Philharmonic at the time of and after the shelling. This evidence includes: (1) conflict data from the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data (ACLED) Project and the Institute for the Study of War (ISW); (2) satellite imagery; (3) remote sensing data; (4) SAR-based image change detection data; (5) open-source information and images; (6) Ground reports from the Ukrainian Heritage Monitoring Lab (HeMo); (7) armed conflict and territorial control data; and (8) human mobility data. (See sections 1–8 below for detailed discussion of each line of evidence.) The primary lines of evidence for this damage are on-site reporting by the Ministry of Culture and Information Policy of Ukraine and forensic documentation by HeMo.

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CITE THIS REPORT: Hanson, K., Cil, D., Gunter-Bassett, M., Tuttle, E., Bakhshi, R., Welsh, W., Fitzgerald, K., Maher, A., Narimanova, N., Rozhko, V., Makar, R., Zadorozhna, M., Oleksii, A., Lawrence-Weilmann, J., Bender, T. J. P., Muller, C. E., Kane, K. E., Bassett, H., Aronson, J., Daniels, B. I., and Wegener, C. (2023). “Site-Based Report: Kharkiv Regional Philharmonic Orchestra in Kharkiv, Ukraine,” Virginia Museum of Natural History, Cultural Heritage Monitoring Lab; Ukrainian Heritage Monitoring Laboratory; University of Maryland, Center for International Development and Conflict Management; University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, Penn Cultural Heritage Center; and Smithsonian Institution, Smithsonian Cultural Rescue Initiative. DOI: 10.25573/data.25412245.