A 1,000-year-old monastery that symbolises Ukraine’s spiritual and cultural heritage was badly damaged in the heaviest Russian aerial attack on Kyiv in two weeks, authorities said on Monday, while 10 people were killed nationwide in the overnight strikes.
France’s foreign minister said the attack on the Kyiv Pechersk Lavra, a Unesco world heritage site founded in 1051, was akin to bombing Notre-Dame cathedral in Paris.
The Russian strikes came after Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelensky said on Sunday he had discussed with US president Donald Trump efforts to secure an end to the conflict, ahead of a G7 meeting in France this week.
“A Russian strike on the Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra set the Dormition Cathedral on fire – a church whose history dates back to the 11th century. And this is one of Russia’s most serious crimes against Christian culture to date,” Mr Zelensky said on X.
“This is an attack on our history,” he said later, while visiting the damaged monastery. “Of course, everything will be restored.”
As flames leapt above the religious compound, Kyiv residents took shelter underground in the worst Russian attack on Ukraine since early June, when drones and missiles killed more than 20 people and left more than 100 wounded.
Russia denied striking the monastery and said it had been damaged by a US-made Patriot air defence missile, but Mr Zelenskiy said during a visit to the site that it had been struck by a Russian drone.
Here are some facts about the Kyiv Pechersk Lavra:
A grand complex with striking bell towers, resplendent churches, chapels, gates and seminary buildings, the monastery was founded by monks near the Dnipro River in 1051.
The first historian of Ukraine, Nestor the Chronicler, lived and worked there. Over the next centuries, the monastery emerged as a leading spiritual centre of Kyivan Rus, where chroniclers, icon painters and physicians worked, fostering the development of education.
The complex grew to become the main sacred site of Orthodox Christianity in Eastern Europe. A short drive from Kyiv’s bustling city centre, it continues to draw large numbers of worshippers and tourists.
The Kyiv Pechersk Lavra, whose name means “monastery of the caves”, occupies more than 20 hectares and has more than 100 buildings, housing several churches and chapels. Six ancient underground churches are located in the caves. It also houses several museums.
The monastery comprises a network of surface and underground churches dating from the 11th to the 19th centuries, set within a labyrinthine cave complex extending over 600 metres.
Home to monks for centuries, the caves were dug into the Dnipro hills between 5 and 15 metres deep.
The bodies of monks rest within them, including the first monk to inhabit the caves, St Anthony.
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