On December 5, 2025, UNESCO placed Bayda Island under enhanced protection.

On December 5, 2025, UNESCO placed Bayda Island under enhanced protection.

Thanks to the expert support of the Agency for Social and Legal Modeling, the Regional Center for Human Rights, and the HeMo: Ukrainian Heritage Monitoring Lab, as well as the assistance of the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine, 19 more Ukrainian cultural heritage sites were included in the International List of Cultural Properties under Enhanced Protection. Among them is the Bayda Island archaeological complex of the Khortytsia National Reserve.

The inclusion took place on December 4, 2025, during the 20th meeting of the UNESCO Committee for the Protection of Cultural Property in the Event of Armed Conflict.

Enhanced protection is an international protection mechanism for cultural heritage provided by the Second Protocol to the 1954 Hague Convention.

Ukraine became the first country in the world to apply the enhanced protection mechanism on a large scale amid full-scale Russian aggression, setting a new precedent in international practice.

Tetyana Berezhna, Ukraine’s Deputy Prime Minister for Humanitarian Policy and Minister of Culture, noted: “The total number of Ukrainian sites on the List of Cultural Properties under Enhanced Protection has increased to 46. This makes Ukraine one of the countries with the largest list of cultural heritage sites under the highest international legal protection in humanitarian law. We will continue to work on expanding the list of sites under enhanced protection and strengthening international legal mechanisms in the field of cultural property protection.”

The list of Ukrainian sites included in 2025 can be found here: https://mcsc.gov.ua/…/tetyana-berezhna-19-ukrayinskyh…/.