Imagine a white building in the soviet classical style.

Figures playing music are enthroned in the gable above the entrance portal framed by columns, entertaining the working people with flutes and bells.

From above you can see the red roof of the building.

"Children" is written in large white Cyrillic letters on the forecourt.

Only civilians are in the building, seeking shelter from the shelling of war.

The building is bombed, hundreds of people die.

This is what happened with the theater in Mariupol.

The attack is representative of the brutal Russian war of aggression against Ukraine, against the people and against the country's identity.

It can be assumed that Russia is specifically targeting cultural sites.

These have been protected by the Hague Convention since 1954.

Deliberate attacks on a country's cultural heritage are considered war crimes and can be prosecuted by the International Criminal Court.

This is what happened in the case of the Malian mausoleums of Timbuktu.

After Ansar Dine rebels destroyed the tombs, the main defendant, Al Faqi al Mahdi, was sentenced to nine years in prison.

The Hague Convention refers to the identity-creating function of national cultural assets and counts damage to them as psychological warfare.

Russia has also signed the convention.

Crypto for culture

But reality looks different.

An international research group from the Cultural Heritage Monitoring Lab registers endangered cultural sites worldwide and is now presenting current figures for Ukraine.

The Russian war of aggression damaged 191 cultural monuments, including around 58 religious sites, 111 memorial sites - and the same theater in Mariupol.

The cultural heritage of the port city is one of the hardest hit, as is the Ukrainian capital of Kyiv.

A museum in the city of Ivankiv was completely destroyed by fire.

The flames engulfed twenty works by artist Marija Prymatschenko, who is highly revered in Ukraine.

The Ukrainian Ministry of Culture and the State Agency for Art Education have launched the Save Ukranian Culture fundraising initiative.

The funds are intended to be used to rebuild destroyed cultural monuments, digitize works of art and support cultural institutions.

The special feature: In cooperation with the blockchain provider Everstake, the initiative also accepts cryptocurrency.

So far, more than a hundred million dollars have been donated to aid projects in Ukraine through the use of digital means of payment.

Documentation from space

Meanwhile, the Cultural Heritage Monitoring Lab is doing its best to locate destroyed or endangered Ukrainian cultural monuments.

The research project, based in the Natural History Museum of the American state of Virginia, was launched in cooperation with the Smithsonian Institution.

With the help of satellite images and remote sensing data, the researchers can record around 26,000 cultural monuments in Ukraine, including the seven World Heritage sites that are still undamaged.

These include the historic old town of Lviv and the St. Sophia Cathedral in Kyiv.