Russia launches 'barbaric' attack on Kyiv, officials say, damaging famous cathedral
Article excerpt
Russia launched a major barrage of drones and missiles at Kyiv on Sunday night, damaging the city's famous cathedral and drawing sharp condemnation from Ukrainian officials who called the strike "barbaric." The attack on Ukraine's capital is the latest in an intensifying campaign of aerial bombardment. Russian forces have repeatedly targeted Kyiv's infrastructure and landmarks throughout the war, with Sunday's strike hitting one of the city's most iconic structures. Ukrainian officials reported fires and damage across multiple locations as air defense systems worked to intercept incoming weapons.
After Russia's deadly bombardment across Ukraine on Sunday night, June 14, at least 11 people have been killed, dozens of others injured, and the nation's treasured Dormition Cathedral was set ablaze within the 11th-century Pechersk Lavra monastery in Kyiv.
A UNESCO World Heritage site since 1990, the monastery is not only Ukraine's most sacred site but also one of the holiest sites in Eastern Orthodox Christianity, and a central pillar of centuries of cultural development across fine arts, literature, history, medicine, and education.
Now extinguished by emergency services, the fire spread quickly along hundreds of square feet of the cathedral's roof. The Ukrainian Security Services reported on Telegram that it has identified debris from a Russian kamikaze drone whose blast allegedly damaged the “roofs [sic], domes, walls, and glazing of the cathedral.” Russia, however, has denied responsibility for the damage to the cathedral, instead claiming that the site was struck by a US-made interceptor missile deployed by Ukraine.
A second precision strike caused another fire at the nearby Mystetskyi Arsenal National Art and Culture Museum Complex while firefighters were working to extinguish the Dormition Cathedral blaze. The damages are still being evaluated as the fire at the Arsenal covered some 1,000 square feet. The costume collection of the Dovzhenko Film Studio in Kyiv was also reportedly destroyed.
In the city of Kharkiv, the Kharkiv Art Museum was hit in a separate strike last night, June 14, causing a large fire and injuring four people.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy decried the cathedral fire as “one of Russia’s most serious crimes against Christian culture to date” in a social media post recapping last night's bombardment, while Ukrainian Prime Minister Yulia Svyrydenko called it a “brutal assault on our people and heritage.”
Though Pechersk Lavra was and remains renowned for its origins as a labyrinthine cave network outfitted for a growing population of ascetic monks in the early 11th century, the original Dormition Cathedral was built at the behest of Theodosius of Kyiv, the saint who brought Cenobitic monasticism, which strictly rejected self-isolation in favor of a hierarchical but communal lifestyle, to Kyivan Rus'. Pechersk Lavra grew to open an icon-painting workshop in the 12th century, and by the 2oth century, it had developed a printing house, a hospital, a school, a city museum, and a formidable archive.
The Dormition Cathedral, like the rest of the monastery, underwent numerous attacks, plunders, reconstructions from the 11th through 20th century, but it was ultimately demolished in an explosion in 1941 during the Nazi occupation of Kyiv. The Cathedral that stands today was reconstructed in 2000 from the partial remains of the original structure, emphasizing the Ukrainian Baroque architectural style that defined an earlier restoration after a devastating fire in 1718.