UNESCO adds historic center of Odesa to World Heritage List 

Reuters reported the information.

The status, awarded by a UNESCO panel meeting in Paris, is designed to help protect Odesa’s cultural heritage, which has been under threat since Russia's invasion of Ukraine, and enable access to financial and technical international aid, Reuters reports.

The historic center of Odesa was included in the UNESCO List of World Heritage in Danger. The decision was made at a UNESCO session in Paris. The center of Odesa was included in the Main List of World Heritage Sites. 

The city center was nominated for the list in 2009, but the Russian invasion of Ukraine accelerated the process.

• On January 23, an expert from the Polish National Heritage Office, Marek Lemiesz, citing data provided by the Ministry of Culture of Ukraine, said that Russian troops had destroyed at least 553 Ukrainian cultural heritage sites since the beginning of the full-scale invasion.