‘We could hear the roof collapsing’: how Russian missiles devastated Kyiv’s cultural sites

Russia’s recent assault killed two people, injured 90 more and significantly damaged many of the capital’s museums For four years, Vitalina Martynovska and her team had been working on a complete transformation of Kyiv’s National Chornobyl Museum. The new sleek displays were designed to tell a fresh story about the reactor explosion of 26 April 1986 – the most serious nuclear accident in history, a factor that contributed to the collapse of the Soviet Union, and an event that continues to sha...

By Charlotte Higgins and Mariana Matveichuk in Kyiv Photographs by Julia Kochetova