A massive Russian missile and drone attack on Kyiv has badly damaged the Dormition Cathedral in the Pechersk Lavra monastery complex, a Unesco world heritage site and one of Ukraine's most significant religious and cultural sites.
Nine people were killed across the country, including four in Kyiv, where waves of drones and missiles drove residents to underground shelters and heavy explosions echoed throughout the capital.
Kyiv's Oleksandr Dovzhenko national film studio, which houses Ukraine's largest and oldest costume collection, was also hit.
â Volodymyr Zelenskyy described the cathedral attack as “one of Russia's most serious crimes ​against Christian culture to date†and urged G7 leaders meeting in France on Monday to increase their pressure on Moscow.
“It is very important that there be a response from the G7 countries, which are now gathering for their summit – and that this response be decisive and substantive: more pressure on the aggressor and more support for Ukraine's air defence, especially anti-ballistic capabilities,†the Ukrainian president said.
Russia denied targeting the cathedral and claimed it had been hit with a US-made Patriot air-defence missile.
Outside the Perchersk-Lavra complex on Monday morning a group of state security officers stood over the remains of two Shahed drones at the site, contradicting the Russian claim.
Further along the road, a tumbled gilded dome lay in the street where it had been toppled by a drone that had struck the upper floors of the Art Arsenal museum space.
“I only heard one of the two strikes at 4.55am in the morning,†said a young priest who volunteers as an army chaplain and declined to give his name. “The explosion was massive and blew open one of our windows,†he added as he tugged at a section of copper roofing. “Everything was shaking.
“I'm from Bakhmut [the Donbas city levelled during Russia's devastating siege and capture]. This site is important to everyone. But for the Russians nothing is sacred there is no sanctuary. They will claim there was a military object here because they have no values.â€
Ukraine would be “urgently initiating†procedures within Unesco and other international mechanisms to ensure “immediate and adequate responses to this state barbarismâ€, the foreign minister, Andrii Sybiha, said on X in reference to the monastery attack.
France's foreign ministry said the attack on Pechersk Lavra ‌was the equivalent of a strike on the Notre Dame cathedral. Its foreign minister, Jean-Noël Barrot said it demonstrated the extent of Russia's “crueltyâ€.
As dawn broke and the monastery was still burning, staff rang bells in a gesture of defiance.
On Sunday, Zelenskyy said he had spoken to Donald Trump about efforts to end to the more â than four-year conflict.
Ukraine's military said on Monday morning that Russia had launched 70 missiles and 611 drones on Ukraine overnight and that its air ‌defence had shot down 50 missiles and 582 drones of various types.
The attack was launched as global attention was focused on the latest efforts by the Trump administration to sign a peace deal with Iran, and in the midst of Trump's cage-fighting spectacle on the White House lawn to mark his 80th birthday.
Footage from the Perchersk Lavra showed flames licking up towards its domes. Six people were reported injured. “[T]he roof of one of the holiest places in the Christian world – the Dormition Cathedral of the Kyiv Pechersk Lavra – is burning,†Metropolitan Epiphanius, the head of the Orthodox Church of Ukraine, wrote on X.
“What more must the Kremlin Antichrist do for the world to realise that decisive action must be taken so that the Russian terror against Ukraine and the very principles of peace come to an end?â€
Yulia Svyrydenko, the prime minister, posted a picture of the monastery building in flames and wrote: “A brutal assault on our people ‌and our heritage. This is the true face of Russia's Orthodox values. We ask for prayers for the salvation of the shrine from destruction. Another Russian crime against humanity, against history, against Christianity.â€
Damage was reported at 16 locations across the capital amid the sound of interceptor launches and explosions that shook windows in the city centre. “New launches targeting the capital keep being recorded,†said Tymur Tkachenko, the head of Kyiv's military administration, urging people to remain in shelters.
Four people were killed and 23 injured in Kyiv, Tkachenko said. Outside the capital, at least five people were killed in the city of Kharkiv in what appeared to be a double-tap strike targeting emergency responders.
Prior to the attack, amid evidence of mounting battlefield setbacks for Russia, the president, Vladimir Putin, had warned that Moscow would target Ukraine with “systemic†strikes.
Kyiv had been relatively quiet in recent days as Moscow prepared its drone and missile forces.
Poland, an EU and Nato member, scrambled fighter jets and put ground-based air defence systems and radar reconnaissance on a state of readiness, the Polish armed forces said on Monday morning.
Ukraine has recently intensified attacks on Russian industrial and energy facilities, as it tries to deprive Moscow of revenues and â hasten an end to the war. On Monday, three people were killed and another three, including a one-year-old child, were injured in a drone ​attack on the Russian city of Tula, an industrial cluster south of Moscow, ​the regional governor said in a Telegram post. Ukraine also moved overnight ​to cut off further supplies from the Crimean peninsula, annexed by Russia in 2014 and already grappling with a fuel crisis, by hitting two bridges connecting ​it to the Russian-controlled areas.
