No voice above war. Ukrainian culture minister resigns after 'misunderstanding' with Zelensky

Ukrainian Culture Minister Oleksandr Tkachenko has announced his resignation over what he said was a "misunderstanding" about his use of public funds to fund cultural projects, as Kiev is at war with Russia.

"I submitted my resignation to the prime minister on Thursday due to a series of events punctuated by misunderstandings about the importance of culture during the war," Tkachenko wrote on Telegram on Friday.

"During war, the budget and funds allocated to culture are just as important as those allocated to drones, because culture is the shield of our identity and our borders," he said.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy on Thursday called for the replacement of the culture minister, criticizing him for spending money from the public budget on cultural projects at the expense of defense.

Zelenskiy said in his daily address: "In times of war like the one we are experiencing, most of the attention of the state and its resources must be devoted to defense." "Museums, cultural centres, monuments and TV series are all important, but now there are other priorities," he said, calling for resources outside the public budget and not the use of state funds. He noted that he had asked Prime Minister Denis Shmegal to replace Tkachenko.

Local media reported that the culture ministry had decided to allocate 448 million hryvnias (about 11 million euros) to produce television series.

According to Radio Free Europe, the outgoing culture minister also stressed the idea of allocating 500 million hryvnias (12 million euros) to complete the construction of the Holodomor National Museum in memory of the victims of the famine caused by Soviet authorities in the early thirties in Ukraine that led to the deaths of millions of people.

At a time of famine, millions of Soviet peasants were forced from their homes and private lands to join collective farms forcibly, resulting in a catastrophic famine of 1932-1933, the deadliest in European history. Holodomor refers to this period of Ukrainian history, with at least 5 million people dying between 1931 and 1933 in the Soviet Union, including at least 3 million Ukrainians.

"If someone says that the museum should not be built during the war, let them make arguments other than the need to spend money on reconstruction because it is available," Tkachenko said, according to an article published Thursday.