The Ukrainian Museum opens its doorways in a Berlin bunker to point out “the harshness of war” | Culture | EUROtoday

Russian drones, the reconstruction of a seven-meter cruise missile, stays of a fight helicopter and an evacuation van the place a person died after being hit by a drone, in addition to testimonies of a conflict that enters its fifth 12 months this week, are simply part of what might be seen within the new Museum of Ukraine, which opened its doorways to the general public this week in a former World War II bunker within the middle of Berlin.

The customer instantly finds himself immersed within the conflict and the doorway now turns into the main focus of the digital camera of an genuine Russian drone. “We want to show people what a drone is really like and how cheap and simple they are,” explains Wieland Giebel, curator of the exhibition. “People who know a little about electronics always say that it seems like they were bought for a few euros on AliExpress. The funny thing is that this is the case. How can you buy a Russian drone on AliExpress for between 200 and 300 euros? The cheapest one costs 100 euros and can kill 10 people. This means about 10 euros per human life.”

As quickly as the primary drone passes by, guests are confronted with the query that the Ukrainian inhabitants requested themselves in 2022: flee and lose all the pieces, or keep and combat? The exhibition brings each paths collectively by way of completely different locations. One of them is that of Julia Sonata, a lady born in Simferopol in 1985, who in 2022 left Crimea along with her two youngsters to reach in Germany. “I am here as a mother who just wanted to keep her children safe, and the things you see in the museum are a symbol of our escape from the Russian invasion,” says Sonata. “For me it is very important that our story continues to move the world. We must not forget or look the other way.” She needed to shortly fill a 35-liter backpack, a backpack that’s now a part of the exhibition. “You have one hour. What would you put in it?” guests are requested. “You have to keep in mind that time is ticking, the missiles are falling, you have to decide in a few minutes what to do,” says Giebel.

On the opposite facet of the room are those that determined to remain and combat, the place an enormous picture remembers the well-known video by Volodímir Zelesnki, from February 2022, underneath the title “We are here. We are in kyiv. We defend Ukraine”, to disclaim the Russian propaganda that urged that he had fled the nation.

Later, within the subsequent room, the customer is requested: “Help or be a jerk? You choose, every day.” “Everyone gets up in the morning and has to make a decision,” says museum director Enno Lenze, who has accompanied help convoys to Ukraine. “As a German, you have the choice: do you want to help or do you want to behave like a jerk?” and bear in mind that you may assist “even with small gestures.”

For the organizers of what they name themselves “the first museum of its kind in the world” it’s about exhibiting “the harshness of war and everything that Russia wants to keep secret”, and what higher option to do it than by way of the testimonies of survivors akin to Oleg Dehusarov who, accompanied by his spouse Aliana Shemediuk, tells how he was significantly injured and miraculously saved his life after a Russian drone hit the roof of the Fiat Scudo that he was utilizing to evacuate individuals within the metropolis of Kherson, within the south of Ukraine, in April 2025. “The drones operate indiscriminately,” he tells EL PAÍS about an assault wherein his good friend Oleg Konekt Salnyk, 28, who was additionally working as a volunteer, died.

“The attack was in a normal area of ​​Kherson, but it was full of drones. You can’t find a place where there aren’t any. Before, in 2023 or 2024 they only reached the beginning of the city, but now the entire city is covered in drones and you can’t go through,” he says subsequent to the stays of the Fiat hit by a Russian FPV. “At the time of the attack, we had gone to the house of a photographer named Sergei. When we arrived he alerted us to the presence of one by pointing his finger at the sky. Then I saw the drone, I turned around and started attacking it for a few seconds. Oleg got out of the car and so did I a few seconds later. I took one step and when I took the second it exploded. I was very close to the explosion, but almost all the shrapnel went in the direction of Oleg and Sergei.”

The exhibition has numerous unmanned plane, each assault and bomb drones. “The war in Ukraine is fought mainly with drones. Rifles and direct combat are not the main cause of casualties in this war, but precisely the drones, the so-called FPV,” Colonel Volodymyr Polevyi, spokesman for the seventh Rapid Response Corps of the Ukrainian Army, tells EL PAÍS concerning the protection of his nation and the injury they handle to do to the Russian forces. “Up to 70% of casualties are caused by FPV and other drones.”

For him, the truth that guests can see these distant controls is “very important” in order that they will see how this expertise is used right this moment in conflict and protection. “These drones operate from an altitude of between five and 10 kilometers. And all you see is the impact of artillery or the noise of another drone,” he says a few conflict that he doesn’t consider might be received with out the help of Europe and different democracies. “And if we lose, war will come to Europe, one way or another.”

Along with the drones, these accountable additionally exhibit a copy of a Kh-101 mannequin cruise missile thought of “extremely effective and precise in combat”, with a variety of between 4,500 and 5,500 kilometers. “As of February 2026, Russia has launched between 2,000 and 2,500 missiles of this type,” a poster studies. One of those missiles hit a constructing in kyiv in July 2025, killing 14 individuals. A big picture of the ruined home reveals the injury it could do.

This assault hit near residence for the previous Deputy Minister of Defense of Ukraine between 2021 and 2023, Hanna Maliar. For her, it is vitally vital to know that we face a “new type” of conflict. “It is a technological war. It is very different from the classic idea. And, in fact, along with tanks, armored technology and missiles, many drones are used every day by both sides,” he factors out about gadgets which can be “small and very difficult to reach”, however which kill similar to a missile.

Maliar, who spent six months within the conflict room of the General Staff bunker, takes benefit of the media affect of the exhibition to keep in mind that “today’s wars are not only with weapons, but also with information” and that Ukraine can’t cease Russia alone. “History repeats itself. After World War II we thought it would never happen again. But now it’s the same thing. We have a Russian Hitler who can now push a nuclear button and commits the same atrocities against people. So the question is: what have we done wrong?”