Russia’s latest assault on Odessa on Sunday killed two people and seriously damaged a historic Orthodox cathedral, prompting Ukraine’s leader to swear retaliation.
The attack came as President Vladimir Putin met his Belarusian counterpart in Russia for talks and claimed Kiev’s counter-offensive had “failed”.
Russia has attacked the Ukrainian port city of Odessa since leaving the Black Sea grain deal last week.
Locals watched in disbelief as the Transfiguration Cathedral – originally built in 1794 under Imperial Russian rule – was damaged.
The largest Orthodox church in Odessa is located within the UNESCO-protected historic city centre.
According to UNESCO chief Audrey Azoulay, UNESCO condemned the “brazen” attack, which targeted several sites in the World Heritage area, which reflected “an escalation of violence against Ukraine’s cultural heritage”.
Clergy rescued icons from the rubble inside the badly damaged temple, which was demolished under Stalin in 1936 and rebuilt in the 1990s after the collapse of the Soviet Union.
The culture ministry said it has so far identified 29 damages to important cultural heritage monuments.
The Ukrainian government condemned the cathedral attack as a “war crime”, saying it was “destroyed twice: by Stalin and Putin”.
President Volodymyr Zelensky vowed retaliation: “They will definitely feel it,” he said.
“We cannot allow people around the world to become accustomed to terrorist attacks,” Zelensky said in a speech late Sunday.
“The target of all these missiles are not just cities, villages or people. They target humanity and the foundations of our entire European culture.”
– Symbols retrieved from the wreckage –
Images show broken mosaics on the floor of the cathedral as workers clear away debris. The exterior of the building appeared intact.
“There was a direct attack on the cathedral,” said assistant rector Father Miroslav. He said that three altars were destroyed.
Insignias were pulled out from under the rubble and the temple was “very badly damaged inside”, he said, with “only the belfry intact”.
The priest said a security guard and a priest getting ready for morning worship were inside during the attack, but both survived.
Russia blamed Ukrainian air defense for the cathedral damage. It said it had hit all of its intended targets in the Odessa attack, claiming the sites were being used to prepare for “terrorist acts” against Russia.
But the local people say that Russia has attacked the residential areas.
“We have simple residential buildings here where people live,” a woman who owns a beauty salon near Tatiana told AFP.
“There are no military facilities here. Just simple beauty salons, a marine agency, a groomer. Nothing military here.”
Russia launched a wave of attacks on the Black Sea port this week, after pulling out of a deal between Moscow, Kiev, Istanbul and the United Nations allowing safe passage of cargo ships.
Ukraine has vowed to find a way to continue exporting from the ports and said on Sunday that the repeated Russian assault on Odessa this week was an attempt to stall and neutralize international efforts to restore the functioning of the “grain corridor”.
– Putin meets Lukashenko –
As Odessa cleared debris from the Russian attacks, Putin hosted his closest ally, the leader of Belarus, Alexander Lukashenko, in his hometown of St. Petersburg — their first meeting since Minsk helped end an insurgency by Russia’s Wagner Force.
Both leaders were dismissive of the Ukrainian counter-offensive to take back the land occupied by Russia.
“There is no retaliatory strike,” Lukashenko said at the meeting, before being interrupted by Putin: “There is one, but it has failed.”
The Belarus strongman now hosts Wagner fighters on his territory, following a deal that convinced its leader Yevgeny Prigozhin to end his march on Moscow and exile himself in Belarus.
“We’re in control of what’s happening (with Wagner),” he said. He thanked Putin for promising to defend Belarus in case it was attacked.
Wagner’s presence in Belarus has upset the European Union and NATO member Poland, which has strengthened its border.
Polish Defense Minister Mariusz Blaszak said on Sunday that a new battalion of sappers would be formed in the country’s north-east.
Polish, American, British, Romanian and Croatian troops were training “side by side”, he said during a visit to the northeastern city of Augusto.
The comments come two days after Putin said western Poland was a “gift” from Stalin at the end of World War II, when the victorious Allies shaped post-war Europe. Warsaw summoned the Russian ambassador over the comments.
Both Putin and Lukashenko also accused Warsaw of having territorial ambitions over Ukraine and Belarus.
Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba quickly reacted on Twitter.
He wrote, “Putin’s attempts to drive a wedge between Kiev and Warsaw are as futile as his failed invasion of Ukraine.”
“Unlike Russia, Poland and Ukraine have learned from history and will always remain united against Russian imperialism and disrespect for international law.”
Fighting in Ukraine continued on Sunday, with Russia launching 17 cruise missiles and two ballistic missiles, according to the Ukraine military.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV Staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)