DONETSK, November 6. /TASS/. Twenty-one cultural heritage sites in the Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR) have been completely destroyed in strikes by the Ukrainian armed forces and are beyond restoration, Kirill Makarov, the republic’s first deputy prime minister, said at the Territory of Memory forum in Donetsk.

"Across the Republic, 128 cultural heritage sites have been damaged - 8 of federal significance, 109 of regional significance, and 11 of local significance. Twenty-one sites have been lost entirely. There is nothing left to repair, all that remains is to document that the site once existed, what it was, and how it vanished," Makarov said.

He added that these figures are not final, as parts of the DPR are still occupied by the Ukrainian armed forces, therefore the condition of many monuments is currently unknown. The regional committee for the protection of cultural heritage sites will be responsible for systematizing data from these areas.

According to the first deputy premier, a White Book detailing the monuments in the DPR destroyed or damaged by the Ukrainian armed forces will include verified accounts of attacks, detailed descriptions of the destruction, a legal assessment, restoration plans for sites that can still be preserved, and cost estimates for the necessary work. The White Book is being compiled at the initiative of the All-Russian Society for the Protection of Monuments of History and Culture and the National Center for Historical Memory under the Russian president. "In the Kursk Region, where such a register has been under development since late 2024, it is explicitly classified as a legal document rather than a mere collection of records. The same requirement applies to the republic. Every entry must be verified," Makarov emphasized.

The creation of a White Book documenting monuments in the Donbass and Novorossiya regions was discussed in Donetsk during a two-day forum titled Territory of Memory. To date, the All-Russian Society for the Protection of Monuments of History and Culture has collected data on more than 400 sites that have been damaged or destroyed by the Ukrainian armed forces across 16 regions of the country.