598 libraries have been damaged in Ukraine as result of Russia's invasion

Since the beginning of Russia's full-scale invasion in Ukraine, 1,582 Ukrainian cultural sites, including 598 libraries, have been damaged, the Culture Ministry said on July 4.

The Culture Ministry said that, as of June 26, nearly a third, or 585, of the damaged sites have been almost completely destroyed.

The Ukrainian government, the World Bank, the European Commission, and the United Nations previously estimated that Russia's war has caused over $2 billion in damages to Ukraine's cultural heritage.

Over the past month, the total number of damaged cultural sites has increased by 62, of which 40 percent are in Kherson Oblast.

The Ministry says that the cultural infrastructure in Donetsk, Kherson, Kharkiv, Kyiv, Mykolaiv, Zaporizhzhia and Luhansk oblasts were most severely damaged.

In addition to libraries, museums and galleries, theaters, and art education institutions were most affected.

The Culture Ministry is continuing to monitor and update the number of cultural sites lost. The ministry emphasized that almost the entire territory of Luhansk and significant parts of the territories of Kherson, Zaporizhzhia, and Donetsk oblasts are still under occupation, which makes it difficult to completely accurately record the number of lost sites.