REUTERS

Four people were killed while the Kyiv Pechersk Lavra monastery, a symbol of Ukrainian spiritual and cultural history, caught fire, in the heaviest Russian air attack on the Ukrainian capital in two weeks, authorities said yesterday.

The fresh strikes came after Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Sunday he had spoken to US President Donald Trump and discussed efforts to achieve an end to the more than four-year conflict, ahead of a G7 meeting in France this week.

The central Kyiv Pechersk Lavra monastery, a Unesco World Heritage site founded in 1051, was seriously damaged in a direct attack, Tymur Tkachenko, the head of the capital’s military administration, said in a Telegram post.

“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,” Zelensky said on X.

As towering flames rose over the monastery, 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 over 100 wounded.

Drones and missiles struck several high-rise apartment buildings and damaged electricity lines, leaving some 140,000 residents without power, according to Kyiv authorities. Authorities later said power had been restored to most residents.

Ukraine’s military yesterday morning said Russia had launched 70 missiles and 611 drones on Ukraine overnight and its air defense shot down 50 missiles and 582 drones of various types.