A large-scale Russian missile and drone attack has set fire to the Dormition Cathedral at Kyiv’s Pechersk Lavra monastery, one of the holiest Christian sites in Ukraine and a UNESCO World Heritage location.
At least four people were killed and 30 wounded in the capital during the overnight assault into June 15, the head of the Kyiv city military administration, Tymur Tkachenko, said. Those injured included a pregnant woman and two children, aged five and six.
Emergency services said the blaze had damaged about 800 square metres of the cathedral roof, with a separate fire breaking out at a national arts and museum complex nearby. The Pechersk Lavra, also known as the Monastery of the Caves, was founded in 1051 and placed on UNESCO’s list of World Heritage in Danger in 2023.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky described the strike as “one of Russia’s most serious crimes against Christian culture to date”.
Metropolitan Epiphanius, head of the Orthodox Church of Ukraine, condemned it as “another Russian crime against humanity, against history, against Christianity” and appealed for prayers to save the site.
Elsewhere, five State Emergency Service rescuers were killed in the northeastern city of Kharkiv when a second Russian strike hit them as they tackled an earlier fire, Interior Minister Ihor Klymenko said. Another five emergency workers were wounded.
Ukraine’s Air Force said Russian forces had launched 70 missiles and 611 drones overnight, of which 50 missiles and 582 drones were intercepted. It said the weapons used had included Zircon anti-ship missiles, Iskander ballistic missiles and Kh-101 cruise missiles.
Russia’s Defence Ministry said it had carried out a “massive strike” with long-range precision weapons against military and defence-industry targets in Kyiv, Kharkiv and Dnipropetrovsk. It cast the attack as retaliation for Ukrainian strikes on Russian territory, a framing Kyiv rejects.
The bombardment left about 140,000 households in the north of the capital without electricity, the mayor of Kyiv, Vitaliy Klitschko, said.
The attack came after Zelensky said he had spoken to United States President Donald Trump about ending the more than four-year war, with a Group of Seven (G7) summit due to take place in France this week. Ukrainian officials said they would press UNESCO and other international bodies for a response to the damage.
