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Vladimir Putin’s political hero Pyotr Stolypin – a reforming prime minister of the Russian empire – is buried in the Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra. That wasn’t enough to protect one of Orthodox Christianity’s most sacred sites from a Russian drone attack.
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For decades, Russia’s political and religious elite have viewed the monastery in central Kyiv as a shared spiritual cradle for Russians and Ukrainians, reinforcing Putin’s narrative that the two nations are “one people.” Now the attack left a gaping hole in the roof threatening the collection of icons inside.
While the damage to monuments is a relatively minor development in Russia’s war that has claimed more than half a million lives, it also carries an emotional charge that has the potential to shape attitudes on both sides of the conflict.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy visited the damage site of the Dormition Cathedral at the heart of the Lavra, a nearly 1,000-year-old cluster of churches and the UNESCO-protected World Heritage site, before traveling to this week’s Group of Seven summit in France.
There, in the elegant spa town of Evian, he showed pictures of the destruction from the Shahed drone attack to President Donald Trump at a meeting alongside French leader Emmanuel Macron, as Europeans sought to get the U.S. president’s support for plans to push Putin toward peace talks. Trump seemed visibly moved by the images, people briefed on the conversation said, and later signed up to a statement in support of Kyiv.
It’s far from an isolated example of strikes on Ukraine’s important cultural heritage over the course of Russia’s full-scale invasion that’s now in its fifth year.
Russia denies that it deliberately targeted the monastery that’s little more than 2 kilometers (1.2 miles) from Zelenskyy’s presidential palace. The Defense Ministry in Moscow blamed the strike on a faulty “U.S.-made Patriot air defense missile.” Russia’s delegation to UNESCO said it “strictly complied” with the 1954 Hague Convention protecting cultural sites during armed conflict, the state-run Tass news service reported.
The attack cased damages amounting to at least 500 million hryvnias ($11.1 million), Ukraine’s Culture Ministry said in a statement on its website. Officials say Russia’s barrage damaged 19 buildings on the grounds of the Lavra, and destroyed about 80% of the cathedral’s roof.
Putin has a personal connection to the religious site, visiting it on at least three occasions as president. “We have not forgotten, and will never forget, what the Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra means to us,” he said during a 2004 visit, according to the Ukrainian online news outlet Korrespondent.net.
A senior bishop in the Orthodox Church of Ukraine, Oleksandr Drabynko witnessed Putin’s visit that day as an aide to the head of the then Moscow-affiliated church. Asked what he would tell the Russian president now, he says: ‘‘I would simply knock him out.”
“After suffering setbacks, they began to see Ukraine as lost,” he said of Monday’s attack. ‘‘And once something is lost, it has to be severed and destroyed.”
In all, 937 sites, among them 336 churches, mosques and synagogues, have been damaged, according to data provided by Olena Kovalska, deputy head of the Ukrainian President’s Office. Still, “The Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra occupies a unique place among those sites,” she said in emailed comments.
Russia has intensified missile and drone attacks in recent weeks, stretching Ukraine’s air defenses that rely heavily on U.S. and European missile supplies to defend Kyiv and other cities. A relentless campaign targeting energy infrastructure sought to freeze Ukrainians into submission last winter, the coldest since the war began.
At least 274 civilians died and 1,763 were injured in Ukraine in May alone, the highest total since April 2022, according to United Nations monitors. Long-range missiles and drones accounted for 45% of the total, they said in a report.
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Until this week, though, many Ukrainians regarded the Lavra as a relatively safe place in the capital because of its special significance to Putin, who appears regularly on Russian TV attending Orthodox church ceremonies.
In some ways, the fate of the Lavra reflects the struggle between Russia and Ukraine. For decades, many Ukrainians viewed the branch of the Orthodox Church subordinate to Moscow as hostile to their nation and a key vehicle for Russian influence. The Lavra has served as its most powerful symbol.
While the church became markedly more critical of Russia after Putin launched the full-scale invasion in 2022, many Ukrainians still view its members with suspicion. Viktoriia, a lawyer and parishioner who spoke near the Lavra, doesn’t disguise she is offended by the government in Kyiv.
“They stigmatize us, saying we are somehow not real Ukrainians,” she said.
Still, she was reluctant to blame Putin directly for the strike on the cathedral, arguing that it was a consequence of Ukrainians’ sins.
Zelenskyy pledged a response to the assault on the Lavra and on Thursday Ukraine unleashed a record number of drones against the Russian capital, damaging the Moscow Oil Refinery and sending plumes of black smoke drifting across the city.
The Lavra’s administration acknowledges there’s little that can be done to protect historic sites such as the monastery from more missile and drone attacks.
“We follow all the required protocols,” said Kostiantyn Krainii, deputy chief executive of the Lavra National Preserve. “But the site covers 27 hectares and contains 140 cultural heritage assets.”
The Dormition Cathedral suffered severe damage at least twice in its history. In the 13th century, it was heavily damaged during the Mongol invasion of Kyiv. During World War II, it was demolished in an explosion. Whether Nazi forces or the Soviet authorities were responsible for the blast remains a subject of historical debate.
Cultural treasures from hundreds of museums in Ukraine have been moved to safer locations during the war and physical protection has been strengthened at key heritage sites where feasible, Kovalska, of the presidential office, said.
“But the most effective protection remains stronger air defenses,” she said.
Zelenskyy repeatedly urges Ukraine’s allies to help strengthen its air defenses in the face of increased Russian attacks, particularly ahead of winter to avoid a repeat of last year’s hardships.
It’s a difficult issue to resolve amid shortages of interceptors for ballistic missiles as demand surged among Gulf states to protect against attacks from Iran during the Middle East conflict.
Putin has yet to comment on the damage to the Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra. He laid flowers at Stolypin’s grave during a July 2013 visit to mark the 1,025th anniversary of the 988 Baptism of Rus.
Less than seven months later, he sent Russian troops to annex Crimea and stoked violence in eastern Ukraine’s Donbas region, starting the spiral to war that’s still continuing.
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