UNESCO. russian propaganda. Ukrainian government. cultural heritage USSR

A russian ‘fake news factory’ has created a video that is a complete fake. The attackers deliberately used the UNESCO logo for propaganda purposes. 

The video states that "over the past two years, the Ukrainian government has allegedly destroyed more than 5,400 monuments to cultural figures and cultural heritage sites, and UNESCO has expressed concern about such actions by the Ukrainian government". The authors of the fake news even attribute the following phrase to Mechtild Ressler, Director of the UNESCO World Heritage Centre: "This attitude to monuments and history is typical of terrorist regimes, but not of European civilisation".
This is true: UNESCO has never published such information on its official resources. Propagandists deliberately used the corporate identity of this international organisation to create a fake. 
The facts about the relocation or demolition of monuments that promote imperial or totalitarian regimes (including the USSR) are not the destruction of ‘cultural heritage’, but part of the process of decommunisation and de-russification, which is approved at the national level in Ukraine. This process is regulated by several laws and regulations based on decisions of local governments and recommendations of the Ukrainian Institute of National Memory. In general, the process of decommunisation and de-russification is supported by the vast majority of the Ukrainian population (77%, according to a survey conducted by Operative Sociology and commissioned by the Ukrainian Institute of National Memory in August 2024).
At least 1066 monuments and symbols of the Soviet Union or russian culture have been dismantled as part of decommunisation. That is, the figure of ‘over 5,400 monuments’ does not even correspond to this data. But the problem is not only with false data. The comment by Mechtilde Ressler, Director of the UNESCO World Heritage Centre, is also completely made up by propagandists. Mechtilde Ressler left her post as Director of the UNESCO World Heritage Centre in October 2021. Today, the institution is headed by Lazar Eloundou Assomo, who also did not make such statements publicly.
In fact, russian aggression against Ukraine is the main threat to the country's cultural heritage. According to the Ministry of Culture, since the start of the full-scale invasion (on 24 February 2022), russia has destroyed more than 1,000 cultural heritage sites in Ukraine, including those under UNESCO protection. As of 16 October, UNESCO has confirmed damage to 457 sites, including 143 religious sites, 231 buildings of historical or artistic interest, 32 museums, 33 monuments, 17 libraries and one archive.
Based on materials from Stopfake.org