By Vladyslav Smilianets
KYIV, June 15 (Reuters) - Firefighters and employees were cleaning up on Monday after what Ukraine said was a targeted Russian strike that caused serious damage to a nearly 1,000-year-old cathedral in Kyiv famed for its historic frescoes and silver artefacts.
The attack set fire to the roof of the Dormition Cathedral, the main cathedral of the Kyiv Pechersk Lavra monastery complex, a symbol of Ukraine's spiritual and cultural history whose golden domes have towered over the capital
for centuries.
First Deputy Culture Minister Ivan Verbytskyi told Ukrainian television that the most valuable religious relics had been evacuated.
Although the roof was badly burned, the cathedral's structure and walls were standing, he said, adding that the iconostasis — an ornate screen separating the nave from the sanctuary — had not suffered any significant damage.
Huge plumes of black smoke billowed above the golden domes in the early hours of Monday as firefighters used cranes and helicopters to douse the flames with water. The fire had been extinguished by 9 a.m. local time (0600 GMT).
Inside the cathedral, water streamed down the painted walls as workers moved to save what they could. Employees removed some furniture while collecting water pooling across the floor, amid concern for the fragile frescoes and religious artefacts.
Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskiy described the attack on the complex as "one of Russia's most serious crimes against Christian culture to date".
Ukraine's SBU security service said it had recovered fragments of a Geran-2 drone, a Russian suicide or kamikaze drone, at the site of the attack and posted images of the debris. Reuters could not verify the information independently.
Russia denied striking the monastery and said it had been damaged by a U.S.-made Patriot air defence missile.
HISTORIC HERITAGE
It is not the first time the site has been hit in the current war, which began in February 2022 when Russian President Vladimir Putin sent tens of thousands of troops into Ukraine.
"Kyiv Pechersk Lavra was first hit in the winter of 2026, but last night marked the first deliberate, precise strike," Maksym Ostapenko, director general of the complex, told Reuters. "It is also the first time we have seen damage on such a scale."
"At the moment, we can see severe damage to all upper parts of the cathedral. There is a high risk for the part which is underneath - paintings, frescoes, iconostasis."
Ostapenko pointed to the silver panels, which he said had been recovered during excavation work after the cathedral was blown up in 1941 on Soviet dictator Josef Stalin's orders.
About 80% of the cathedral was destroyed in that explosion and was rebuilt 25 years ago, with the restoration of the iconostasis completed only last year, he said.
"This is one of the most renowned examples of Ukraine's cultural and historical heritage that Russia is targeting precisely to destroy it," Ostapenko said.
(Reporting by Vladyslav Smilianets; Additional reporting and writing by Anna Pruchnicka in Gdansk; Editing by Daniel Flynn and Gareth Jones)
