A government controversy at the heart of the war. Ukraine’s culture minister announced his resignation early Friday, July 21 after “misunderstandings” over the use of state funds for cultural projects as kyiv attempts to thwart the Russian invasion.
“I submitted my resignation letter to the Prime Minister (Thursday) evening, due to a wave of misunderstanding about the importance of culture in wartime,” Oleksandre Tkatchenko wrote on Telegram. “During war, private and budgetary funds for culture are no less important than for drones, because culture is the shield of our identity and our borders,” he added, without giving further details on the reasons for his resignation.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky had called on Thursday evening for the replacement of the minister, criticizing the use of the state budget for cultural projects to the detriment of defence. “In times of war like this, the maximum attention of the state, and therefore state resources, must be devoted to defence,” Volodymyr Zelensky quipped in his daily address.
“Museums, cultural centers, symbols, TV series – all of this is important, but now there are other priorities. Find extrabudgetary funds. Not state funds,” added Volodymyr Zelensky, indicating that he had asked Prime Minister Denys Shmygal to replace Oleksandr Tkatchenko.
On Thursday, online media Ukrayinska Pravda reported that the Ministry of Culture decided to allocate 448 million hryvnias (nearly 11 million euros) for the production of TV series. According to Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL), the outgoing Minister of Culture has also defended the idea of ??mobilizing 500 million hryvnias (12 million euros) to complete the construction of the national museum of the Holodomor genocide.
This famine caused in the early 1930s in Ukraine by the Soviet authorities caused the death of several million people. “If someone says that the museum should not be built during the war, let him provide other arguments than that of the need to spend money on reconstruction. There are funds,” Oleksandre Tkatchenko told the US-funded outlet, according to an article published Thursday.
