By Pavel Polityuk and Anna Voitenko
KYIV, June 15 (Reuters) – A 1,000-year-old monastery that symbolises Ukraine’s spiritual and cultural heritage was badly damaged on Monday in a major attack by Russia that killed 10 people nationwide, hours after Donald Trump spoke to the leaders of both countries about ending the war.
Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said on Sunday he had discussed with Trump efforts to bring an end to the four-year-old conflict, ahead of a G7 meeting in France starting on Monday. The U.S. president also told Russian leader Vladimir Putin in a call on Sunday that it was vital to end the war.
The damage to the Kyiv Pechersk Lavra monastery, a UNESCO World Heritage site founded in 1051, drew international condemnation. France’s foreign minister said the attack was akin to bombing Notre Dame cathedral in Paris.
Zelenskiy, who visited the monastery to inspect the damage, said the attack was “one of Russia’s most serious crimes against Christian culture to date”.
“This is an attack on our history,” he told reporters at the monastery, where rescuers were assessing the impact on the building’s paintings and frescoes. “Of course, everything will be restored.”
The blaze caused extensive damage to the roof of the Dormition Cathedral, the main church at the monastery site, but its structure and walls remained standing, and much of the interior appeared intact.
As flames leaped above the religious compound, Kyiv residents took shelter underground in the worst Russian attack on Ukraine since early June, when drones and missiles killed more than 20 people and wounded more than 100.
Russia denied striking the monastery, calling the allegations “a crude fake”, and said instead it had been damaged by a U.S.-made Patriot air defence missile, which Ukraine uses to protect its cities.
However, Ukraine’s SBU security service said it had recovered fragments of a Geran-2 drone, a Russian kamikaze drone, at the attack site and posted images of the debris, including a wing segment and a motor. Reuters could not verify the information independently.
‘KREMLIN ANTICHRIST’
Metropolitan Epifaniy, head of the Orthodox Church of Ukraine, called on X for the international community to take “decisive action” to put an end to “the Russian terror against Ukraine”.
Four people were killed and 34 were injured in the overnight strikes on Kyiv, said Tymur Tkachenko, the head of the capital’s military administration. Kyiv’s Mayor Vitaliy Klitschko later said a fifth person had died in hospital from their injuries.
A Russian strike on Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city, killed four emergency service rescuers and a municipal official and injured at least five other people, Interior Minister Ihor Klymenko said on Telegram.
Meanwhile, a Ukrainian drone attack on the Russian city of Tula, an industrial cluster south of Moscow, killed three people and injured three others, including a 1-year-old child, the regional governor said in a Telegram post.
Russia and Ukraine both deny deliberately attacking civilians. Reuters could not independently confirm the reports.
Ukraine’s military said Russia had launched 70 missiles and 611 drones overnight and that its air defences had shot down 50 missiles and 582 drones of various types.
In recent months, Ukraine has appealed to Western allies to increase supplies of the Patriot air defence missiles, which are its only effective means to stop Russian ballistic missiles.
Air Force spokesperson Yuriy Ihnat said that Ukraine shot down only 15 of the 34 ballistic missiles launched by Russia overnight. “Ballistic missiles remain a problem for us,” Ihnat said on national television.
Zelenskiy, who was heading to France for the G7 meeting, said that he would appeal on Tuesday to allies there to quickly supply more air defences to defend against Russian strikes.
EUROPEAN CONDEMNATION
European leaders condemned the attack on the Kyiv monastery.
“This is a UNESCO world heritage site, which for us in France is the equivalent of Notre Dame or Saint Denis being bombed,” said French Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot as he arrived for a meeting of European Union foreign ministers.
Much of the monastery’s iconic Dormition Cathedral was previously rebuilt after it was blown up in 1941 during World War Two.
The EU’s foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas called the attack a “war crime”. French President Emmanuel Macron said G7 leaders meeting in France would discuss how to end the war in Ukraine.
Ukraine’s Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha said he had requested an emergency meeting of the U.N. Security Council to discuss the attack.
Before Sunday’s conversation with Trump, Zelenskiy had proposed direct talks with Putin for a ceasefire solution involving the U.S. and Europe – something Britain, Germany and France supported but Putin rebuffed.
Ukraine has recently intensified attacks on Russian industrial and energy facilities, as it tries to deprive Moscow of revenues and hasten an end to the war.
Overnight, Ukraine hit two bridges connecting Crimea with Russian-controlled areas. The Black Sea peninsula, seized by Russia in 2014, is already grappling with a fuel crisis as a result of Ukrainian attacks that have disrupted supplies.
(Additional reporting by Jekaterīna Golubkova in Tokyo and Daniel Flynn in Kyiv; Editing by Daniel Flynn, Louise Heavens, Gareth Jones and Cynthia Osterman)
By Pavel Polityuk and Anna Voitenko | Reuters | © Copyright Thomson Reuters 2026.
