Ukraine Campaign to halt loss of art from Soviet era

As Russian bombs rain down on Ukraine, one young Ukrainian activist is trying to halt destruction of a different kind: the neglect of, and damage to, modernist buildings and public art.

- Charlotte Higgins

Nearly a decade ago, in 2015, Ukraine instituted laws demanding the removal of monuments and street names glorifying the country's communist past, with the exception of listed heritage sites. But masterpieces of Soviet modernism are at risk from an unthinking approach to the laws, says the architecture expert and photographer Dmytro Soloviov.

The problem is compounded, he said, by "unchecked development", corruption, and a lack of planning regulations - as well as a general lack of knowledge of and appreciation for Soviet modernism. Anger about Ukraine's period as a subject of the Soviet Union can blind citizens to the merits of the country's modernist architecture, he said.

"Subtlety and nuance are completely missing from the debate about decommunisation generally. And when it comes to Soviet Ukrainian heritage, it gets even messier. People really get blinded by misdirected fury."

"When you remember we are in the middle of a brutal war which is destructive in itself, it is completely unnecessary to add to that destruction," he said.

Soloviov, who is writing a book titled Ukrainian Modernism, to be published by the UK publisher Fuel, runs an Instagram account that celebrates and charts damage to 20th-century Ukrainian architecture and public art.