Russian attacks kill 11 across Ukraine, set centuries-old religious site in Kyiv ablaze

Russia launched hundreds of drones and dozens of missiles at Ukraine’s biggest cities in a nighttime bombardment that killed at least 11 people and set fire to a renowned religious site, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and other officials said Monday.

A series of powerful explosions echoed across Kyiv, with a wave of ballistic missiles followed by Shahed drones, as many people sought shelter underground and officials urged residents to take cover.

Zelenskyy said that the Russian strikes killed 11 civilians and emergency workers and wounded 53 across Ukraine.

The barrage killed five people in Kyiv, Mayor Vitali Klitschko said. At least 30 people were injured, including two children aged five and six, according to Tymur Tkachenko, head of the city’s military administration.

Five strikes hit civilian sites in the city’s Shevchenkivskyi district in less than 30 minutes, he said, including a 25-storey apartment building, while a market and a grocery store caught fire. In the Obolonskyi district, a nine-storey residential building took a direct hit.

Striking apartment blocks was a “deliberate decision” by Russia, he said.

Russia’s Defence Ministry said it carried out a strike with long-range precision weapons and drones on military industrial facilities in Kyiv, Kharkiv and Dnipro, as well as military conscription offices and military air bases. It said “the goals of the strikes have been fulfilled and all the designated facilities have been hit.”

Russia also claimed to have hit Kyiv’s Radar plant, which it said makes drone components, and the Mayak plant that it said makes Ukraine’s Flamingo long-range cruise missiles. Military conscription offices in Kyiv were also struck, it said.

Ukraine’s air force said Russia launched 70 missiles and 611 drones overnight, primarily targeting Kyiv, while also striking the cities of Dnipro and Kharkiv. The military said air defences intercepted or electronically suppressed 632 aerial targets, including 50 missiles and 582 drones.

Preliminary data showed 20 ballistic missiles and 27 attack drones hit 42 locations across the country, while debris from intercepted drones fell at 12 sites.

UNESCO site damaged

Damage at the Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra, a monastic complex, was substantial and a serious fire had broken out, said Tkachenko, who accused Russia of deliberately striking “the heart of one of the largest Christian shrines.”

The roof of the Dormition Cathedral caught fire during the overnight attack, said Metropolitan Epiphanius, head of the Orthodox Church of Ukraine. He condemned the strike as another Russian crime “against humanity, against history, against Christianity” and appealed for prayers to save the site.

The Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra, also known as the Monastery of the Caves, is a sprawling complex of monasteries and churches, including some underground, built from the 11th to the 19th century. Some of the churches at the UNESCO-listed World Heritage site are connected by a labyrinthine complex of caves spanning more than 600 metres.

The cathedral, churches and other buildings overlook the right bank of the Dnipro River and have been a pilgrimage site for centuries.

French Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot said the attack was the “equivalent, for us French, of a bombing of Notre Dame,” referring to the Paris cathedral.

French President Emmanuel Macron said the attack only strengthened the determination of Ukraine’s allies to pursue a ceasefire and work toward peace.

“Just as nothing can justify the war of aggression that Russia has been waging against Ukraine for more than four years, nothing can justify this attack on our shared universal heritage,” Macron wrote on social media.

Russia’s Defence Ministry claimed without offering evidence that the complex was hit by one of Ukraine’s U.S.-made Patriot air defence missiles, saying that it might have veered off course because its shelf life had expired.

Attacks kill rescuers, destroy college

In Kharkiv, authorities said Russian forces used a “double tap” tactic, launching four additional drone strikes on the site of an earlier attack in the Kholodnohirskyi district after emergency crews had arrived.

Four emergency service workers and an employee of the Kharkiv City Council’s emergency department were killed, while six rescuers and three civilians were injured. Separately, a woman was injured in the city’s Shevchenkivskyi district, where residential buildings and vehicles were damaged in a drone strike.

In Dnipro, one of the buildings of a local college was destroyed, while the blast wave shattered windows at a school and the city’s House of Organ and Chamber Music, according to Dnipropetrovsk regional administration head Oleksandr Hanzha.

Two people were injured and infrastructure, businesses, a college and cultural institutions were damaged. Russian forces also carried out nearly 30 attacks using drones, artillery, missiles and guided aerial bombs in Dnipro as well as the Kryvyi Rih, Pavlohrad, Synelnykove and Nikopol districts.

In the Sumy region, three people including a child were injured after a Russian strike hit an apartment building and damaged a non-residential structure, Ukraine’s State Emergency Service said.