The United Nations cultural agency has added the cooking of "borscht" - a soup usually made with beetroot and potatoes - in Ukraine to its list of endangered intangible cultural heritage.
UNESCO has said that the war in Ukraine has "threatened" the cooking of the soup.
"Victory in the war for borscht is ours", said the Minister of Culture in Ukraine, Oleksandr Tkachenko, BBC writes. "We will win both, the borscht and the war. We will gladly share borscht and its recipe with civilized countries. And with the uncivilized as well, so that they have something good, tasty and Ukrainian", he added.
Russia's Foreign Ministry has derided the move, saying that the Russian version of cooking does not need protection. "Hummus and pilaf have already been declared national dishes of some nations. But as far as I understand, it's all about 'Ukrainization'. What's next? Will pork also be declared a Ukrainian national food", she wrote in Telegram.
Borsch is a soup, usually colored red from beetroot - although green and white varieties also exist.
While Ukraine considers 'borscht' its national dish, it is also widely consumed in Russia, other former Soviet states and Poland. As a result, its origins are disputed.
There are many competing claims about where the dish originated, how the name should be pronounced, whether it should contain meat or not, or even whether there should be any cream on the soup or not.
In recent years, the status of cooking between Ukraine and Russia has fueled fierce debates on social networks, so much so that it got the name "Borsch war".
In 2020, Ukraine applied to have cooking added to the list of cultural heritage in danger, and the decision was postponed until 2023. However, the process was rushed due to the start of the Russian occupation of Ukraine and the "negative impact" on the cooking tradition, has made UNESCO said in a press release.