A video on social media shows a distraught Ukrainian man walking inside Odesa’s largest Orthodox church building. Parts of the roof have collapsed, and lie in a heap on the floor. Flames stretch up the painted and gilded walls. – The church no longer exists… God be with us, he says with despair in his voice. The infrastructure at the port will also be damaged, and several other buildings. Drone image of the cathedral that was destroyed on the night of Sunday. Photo: Libkos / AP – Rockets against peaceful cities, against housing developments, a cathedral. There is no excuse, wrote President Volodymyr Zelenskyj in a post on Telegram. This icon is among the values that have made it. Photo: STRINGER / Reuters – There will be revenge against the Russian terrorists for Odesa. They will know this revenge, he writes in the post. They have managed to save something from the destroyed part of the church, the local authorities state in the messaging app. – The Kasperovska icon of the Mother of God, who is Odesa’s patron saint, has been rescued from the scrapyard. Russia has attacked Odesa and other ports for food exports daily since they pulled out of the grain deal, which protects shipping on the Black Sea. Revenge for Crimea Ukraine says on Sunday that the Russian military fired 19 missiles from land, air and sea at Odesa during the night. They managed to destroy nine of the missiles, according to the Ukrainian air defense. Russia says it has aimed its missiles at Odesa as revenge for a Ukrainian attack on the Russian-built bridge connecting Crimea to the mainland. The Crimean peninsula was occupied by Russia in 2014. The Kremlin has blamed Ukraine for using the Black Sea corridor to carry out “terrorist attacks” against Russian targets. This is what the damaged part of the Crimean bridge looked like on 17 July 2023. Moscow also said on Saturday that they had closed traffic on the bridge after an attack against one of their ammunition depots nearby. Photo: MAXAR TECHNOLOGIES / Reuters But the occupying power has not yet commented on Sunday’s attack which damaged the cathedral, according to Reuters. In a few hours, President Vladimir Putin will hold a summit with Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko. According to the Kremlin, they will discuss their “strategic partnership and alliance”. This will be the first time they meet since Lukashenko helped to put an end to the dramatic Wagner uprising. Formerly razed by the Soviet Union The Transfiguration Cathedral, as it is also called, was inaugurated in 1809, but destroyed by the Soviet Union over a hundred years later. In 2003, it was rebuilt by the Ukrainians. The cathedral belongs to the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (UOK), the second largest denomination in the country. The fire inside the cathedral was extinguished on Sunday morning. Photo: Jae C. Hong / AP But most of Ukraine’s Orthodox Christians belong to a sect that was created four years ago by merging churches that were independent from the Russian church. Ukraine owes the UOK to still have links to the Russian Orthodox Church, even though the UOK itself claims to have broken all ties with it in May 2022. Zelenskyj nevertheless posted a series of photos of the damage to the church on Sunday morning A woman prays on the street outside the Freedom Cathedral. Photo: OLEKSANDR GIMANOV / AFP UNESCO has “strongly condemned” the Russian attacks on the center of Odesa. The city center is on the world heritage list, for which the UN organization is responsible. Among the other historic buildings that will be damaged are the Odesa Archaeological Museum, the Odesa Maritime Museum and the Odesa Literature Museum. Altogether, they have verified damage to 270 protected buildings in Ukraine since the start of the invasion.
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Cathedral on the world heritage list “seriously damaged” in Russian rocket attack – news Urix – Foreign news and documentaries
