Russia defended their act of destroying the largest Orthodox Cathedrals in Odesa, a UNESCO designated World heritage Site, by saying ‘terrorist acts against the Russian Federation were being devised in the cathedral’
Russia, in keeping up with their barrage of attacks paralysing southern Ukraine, on Sunday struck the historic Ukrainian Black Sea city of Odesa again. The attack left their historic cathedral in shambles and one person dead.
Local authorities have informed that twenty two others were wounded in the attack.
According to reports citing Regional Governor Oleh Kiper, four children were wounded in the blast. The strike severely damaged the historic Transfiguration Cathedral, a landmark Orthodox cathedral in the city.
Russia has been launching persistent attacks on Odesa, a key hub for exporting grain, since Moscow canceled a landmark grain deal on Monday amid Kyiv’s grinding efforts to retake its occupied territories.
Kiper noted that six residential buildings, including apartment buildings, were destroyed by the strikes.
The Transfiguration Cathedral, one of the most important and largest Orthodox Cathedrals in Odesa, was severely damaged.
After the fires were put out, volunteers donned hard hats, shovels and brooms at the cathedral to begin removing rubble, combing through to salvage any church artifacts — under the watchful gaze of the saints whose paintings remained intact.
Archdeacon Andrii Palchuk said the damage was caused by a direct hit from a Russian missile that penetrated the building down to the basement and caused significant damage. Two people who were inside at the time of the strike were wounded.
The cathedral belongs to the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, which has been accused of links to Russia. The church has insisted that it’s loyal to Ukraine, has denounced the Russian invasion from the start and has even declared its independence from Moscow.
But Ukrainian security agencies have claimed that some in the Ukrainian church have maintained close ties with Moscow. They’ve raided numerous holy sites of the church and later posted photos of rubles, Russian passports and leaflets with messages from the Moscow patriarch as proof that some church officials have been loyal to Russia.
Odesa’s historic center was designated an endangered World Heritage Site by UNESCO earlier this year despite Russian opposition.
Russia’s Defense Ministry said Sunday that Russian forces had attacked sites in Odesa, “where terrorist acts against the Russian Federation were being prepared."
The ministry said in a statement that the strikes were carried out with sea- and air-based long-range high-precision weapons, and that there are “foreign mercenaries" at the targeted sites.
In a later statement, the ministry denied that its attacks had struck the Transfiguration Cathedral, claiming that the destruction of the cathedral was likely due to “the fall of a Ukrainian anti-aircraft guided missile."
Earlier Russian attacks this week crippled significant parts of export facilities in Odesa and nearby Chornomorsk and destroyed 60,000 tons of grain, according to Ukraine’s Agriculture Ministry.
The attacks come days after President Vladimir Putin pulled Russia out of the Black Sea Grain Initiative, a wartime deal that enabled Ukraine’s exports to reach many countries facing the threat of hunger.
Putin vowed to retaliate against Kyiv for an attack Monday on the crucial Kerch Bridge linking Russia with the Crimean Peninsula, which the Kremlin illegally annexed in 2014.
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