Mass Russian missile-and-drone strikes sparked a blaze that tore through the roof of the Dormition Cathedral at the Kyiv Monastery of the Caves, one of the holiest sites in Eastern Orthodoxy, on a night that Ukrainian officials described as devastating damage to the country’s cultural heritage. The attacks overnight Sunday into Monday killed at least 11 people across Ukraine and struck an art museum in Kharkiv and film studios in Kyiv.
The overnight barrage, which Ukrainian officials said consisted of 70 missiles and 611 drones launched since Sunday evening, set the cathedral’s roof ablaze. The night sky glowed orange and smoke billowed over the Pechersk Lavra monastery complex, which dates back to the 11th century and has been severely damaged in several wars, including World War II. Ukraine’s military reported downing 50 missiles and 582 drones.
In Kharkiv, five people were killed, including four rescue workers, after Russia carried out what Ukrainian officials described as a double-tap strike — an initial attack followed by a second aimed at maximizing casualties. The strikes also damaged the film studios in Kyiv, which house a collection of 100,000 costumes, Ukrainian officials said.
President Volodymyr Zelensky visited the Monastery of the Caves, a sprawling religious complex on a hill overlooking the Dnipro River, to survey the damage. Videos and photos released on his official social media showed the president on the cathedral’s roof amid twisted and charred metal and wood. “It is important that the world does not remain silent in response to this latest act of Russian barbarism,” Zelensky said on social media. He also called the damage “an attack on the Christian community and on the cultural heritage of humanity” and urged more pressure on Russia and more support for Ukraine’s air defense.
The Russian Defense Ministry said, without offering evidence, that the monastery had been hit by an American Patriot missile during the overnight barrage, which Russia said targeted Ukrainian drone-industry installations in Kyiv, Kharkiv and Dnipro. Ukraine’s security services published photographs that it said were debris from a Russian explosive drone that caused the cathedral fire.
The monastery has long been at the center of Russia’s efforts to maintain cultural dominance over Ukraine, having been controlled by the Ukrainian arm of the Russian Orthodox Church. Ukraine was granted its own independent Orthodox Church in 2019 by Patriarch Bartholomew, Orthodoxy’s foremost leader, a move denounced by Russian President Vladimir Putin. In 2023, a year after Russia’s invasion, the Ukrainian government terminated the agreement for the Russian Orthodox Church to use the site. Church services began being held there in Ukrainian.
On Monday, the leader of the Orthodox Church of Ukraine, Metropolitan Epifaniy, called for prayers for the salvation of the cathedral, calling the damage “another Russian crime against humanity, against history, against Christianity.”
By midday, firefighters had extinguished the flames at the cathedral.