War and the city: Lessons from urbicide in Ukraine

Abstract

This article explores urbicide during Europe’s largest ongoing war of the 21st century. Urbicide in Ukraine is not just another story in a long list of well-covered destroyed cities; it has new manifestations and needs to be rethought. Despite the variety of forms and concepts associated with urbicide, it has some common features such as non-selective ness, simultaneous destruction of symbolic and mundane, ordinary places, both physical structures and values, is aimed at ‘killing’ the heterogeneous urbanity for its own sake, and even being carefully planned causes reconfiguration of urban spaces in unexpected ways. The article has three focuses; it concentrates on the extent and causes of direct ur bicide in Ukraine, the relation of urban life under occupation and indirect urbicide, and narratives of (non)return to occupied cities. All these foci are united by the main purpose of the study to understand the urbicide caused by the warfare and global geopolitical changes that are ‘exploding’ (in a literal and relative sense) in Ukraine’s cities. This re search is based on the analysis of semi-structured in-depth interviews, thematic analysis, as well as mapping of warfare and urbicide in Ukraine.

Цифрова Трансформація Національної Економіки України: Виклики Та Можливості

“…The rebuilding of critical facilities, such as communication infrastructure, remains important. The case of Sloviansk demonstrates this, where a public-private partnership focusing on IT infrastructure development, including optical fiber deployment and increased 4G coverage, has attracted digital businesses and remote workers, showcasing the long-term impact of infrastructure repair on digital well-being and economic growth (Mezentsev and Mezentsev, 2022;Horbyk, 2022).…”

Decentralization in Ukraine: Reorganizing Core–Periphery Relations?

“…While there were suggestions to eliminate the regional scale of territorialization, the Decentralization Reform actually played a crucial role in the Minsk Agreement process, which proposed a temporary autonomy grant for Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts. Mezentsev and Mezentsev (2022) present an (uncritical) comparison of liberated cities as developing, entrepreneurial, bright, Ukrainian, and future-oriented. In contrast, occupied cities were seen as declining, dull, Russian, backwards-thinking, and nostalgic for a Soviet past.…”

“…In contrast, occupied cities were seen as declining, dull, Russian, backwards-thinking, and nostalgic for a Soviet past. The localities experiencing a decline in the peripheries of liberated cities-thus deviating from Mezentsev and Mezentsev's (2022) central framework-are less explored. Cities liberated by Ukraine in the early stages of the conflict were empowered through decentralization and amalgamation.…”

Scenariusze odnowy małych miast. Wyzwania i problemy rewitalizacji wybranych ośrodków województwa warmińsko-mazurskiego

“…Niszczona jest nie tylko fizyczna tkanka miejska, ale również materialne i niematerialne dziedzictwo kulturowe, które jest właściwie niemożliwe do odtworzenia . Obecnie obserwujemy to z dużą siłą w Ukrainie (Mezentsev, Mezentsev, 2022) . Paradoksalnie w miastach, gdzie obszary staromiejskie są nadal nieodbudowane (Kisielice) bądź odbudowane tylko częściowo (dla porównania: Pieniężno, Miłakowo, Bisztynek), niezagospodarowane przestrzenie zniszczone po wojnie stanowią szansę dla współczesnej przebudowy i rekonstrukcji (Lubocka-Hoffmann, 2023) .…”