Ukraine's culture ministry has published its latest tally of the war's toll on heritage: by the end of September 2026, Russian attacks had damaged 2,161 cultural heritage sites and 2,665 cultural institutions across the country. September alone added 26 sites and 25 institutions to the count. The damaged sites include 194 monuments of national significance, 1,769 of local significance and 198 newly identified objects. The heaviest losses are in the east and south: the Donetsk region counts 369 affected sites, followed by Kharkiv with 355, Kherson with 305, Kyiv with 285 and Odesa with 212. In September, fresh damage was recorded in the Dnipropetrovsk, Zaporizhzhia, Kirovohrad, Mykolaiv, Sumy and Kherson regions and in Kyiv itself, while strikes in Donetsk, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson hit sites that had already been damaged before. The figures reach into the country's most protected places. The Consistory building within the St Sophia Cathedral complex in Kyiv — part of a UNESCO World Heritage site — was damaged in September, along with properties inside its buffer zone. Of the 2,665 affected cultural institutions, 571 have been completely destroyed, more than a fifth of the total. The institutional toll spans 917 libraries, 197 art education institutions, 140 museums and galleries and 57 theatres, cinemas and concert halls, spread across 362 communities. Over the summer, attacks destroyed more than 13 million books, valued at an estimated 1.75 billion hryvnia. Deputy prime minister and culture minister Tetiana Berezhna said documenting the destruction was essential to holding Russia accountable, while work continues to protect monuments and museum collections that remain under threat.