Russia fired a barrage of missiles at several major Ukrainian cities overnight into Monday, killing at least 11 people and setting Kyiv’s historic Dormition Cathedral on fire.
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The wave of attacks came as news of a US-Iran deal started to open a path to peace in the Middle East war, highlighting the lack of progress toward an end to over four years of fighting in Ukraine.
Five rescue workers were killed during firefighting operations in northeast Ukraine, while at least five others were wounded after Russian strikes hit the city of Kharkiv, Interior Minister Igor Klymenko said on Monday.
The violence killed another four people in the capital, where fire broke out on the grounds of the UNESCO world heritage site Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra and the roof of the Dormition Cathedral was on fire.
Residents were seen running through the streets seeking shelter as projectiles were intercepted in the sky and glowing debris fell across the city, journalists in the capital witnessed.
In response to the assault Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy called for more pressure on Moscow from G7 leaders, who were gathering at a summit in France set to be dominated by the US-Iranian deal to end the Middle East war.
Five rescue workers were killed during firefighting operations in northeast Ukrainian city of Kharkiv, Interior Minister Igor Klymenko said on Monday.
The violence killed another five people and wounded 25 in the capital as fire broke out on the grounds of the UNESCO world heritage site Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra and the roof of the Dormition Cathedral was on fire.
One more person was killed in the frontline southeastern city of Kherson.
Russia denied targeting the cathedral and said it had been hit by a US Patriot missile.
“According to confirmed reports, the Kyiv Pechersk Lavra complex was hit by a missile from an American Patriot anti-aircraft missile system. One of the reasons for the system’s malfunction could have been that Western countries supplied the Kyiv regime with expired missiles,” Russia’s defence ministry said in a statement.
Ukraine’s air force said Moscow had launched 70 missiles and 611 drones, mainly targeting the capital, adding that Ukrainian air defence units had downed 50 missiles and 582 drones.
Russia’s military said it had carried out a “massive strike” on Ukrainian military sites in the capital Kyiv, as well as Kharkiv and Dnipro regions.
The fire had been put out by the morning, Zelenskyy said.
“This is one of Russia’s most serious crimes against Christian culture to date,” he said.
He called for G7 leaders, meeting for a summit in France, to give a “decisive and substantive” response to the attacks: “more pressure on the aggressor and more support for Ukraine’s air defence, especially anti-ballistic capabilities.”
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A building in the capital’s Mystetsky Arsenal National Art and Museum Complex also caught fire, according to Ukraine’s emergency service.
Russian attacks damaged several buildings in the Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra complex in January, the Ministry of Culture reported at the time.
Head of the local military administration, Tymur Tkachenko, condemned the “direct strike” on the site.
Kyiv’s Metropolitan Epiphanius also denounced the attack as a “crime against humanity, history and Christianity.”
‘Bring about peace’
The major city of Kharkiv, in the northeast, also came under missile attack.
“Five State Emergency Service rescuers were killed during firefighting operations as a result of a repeated Russian strike,” Interior Minister Igor Klymenko said on Telegram. At least nine people were also injured.
Two people were injured in the Dnipropetrovsk region, and three were wounded in the Sumy region, local authorities said.
A Ukrainian drone strike killed three people and wounded three others in the Russian city of Tula, around 200 kilometres south of Moscow, the regional governor Dmitry Milyaev said on Monday.
Zelenskyy and Russian leader Vladimir Putin both called their US counterpart Donald Trump on Sunday to discuss the conflict in Ukraine.
Zelenskyy said on X that he had “discussed things that could help bring about peace now,” while his adviser Dmytro Lytvyn told the press he was pleased with a “quite substantive conversation about everything” between the leaders.
The Kremlin said that the conversation between Putin and Trump focused on peace negotiations with the United States and Iran.
Kremlin adviser Yury Ushakov told the press that “US presidential special representatives Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, who are currently closely involved in Iranian affairs, will return to Russia soon.”
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has turned into Europe’s worst conflict since World War II, with thousands of civilians and hundreds of thousands of troops killed.
Amid near-daily pummelling of its cities by Russian drones and missiles, Ukraine has in recent weeks stepped up its own aerial attacks, which it says mostly target Russia’s oil infrastructure to sap its profits that fund the war.
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