Russian strikes damage Kyiv's Dormition Cathedral
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- Russian forces launched 70 missiles and 611 drones at Kyiv and other Ukrainian cities in a nearly five-hour overnight assault, killing at least 11 people — 6 in Kyiv and 5 in Kharkiv — and igniting a fire on the roof of the Dormition Cathedral at the Pechersk Lavra monastery complex, founded in 1051.
- President Zelensky called the cathedral strike "the most serious crime against Christian culture to date" and plans to press Donald Trump at Monday's G7 meeting in Evian to authorize additional Patriot missile sales, citing Ukraine's nearly exhausted supply.
- Canada's PM Mark Carney condemned the attack on Pechersk Lavra as a strike on "a sacred site in Ukraine and Eastern Christianity," while France's Foreign Minister Jean-Noël Barrot likened it to bombing Notre-Dame or Saint-Denis.
- Russia's Defence Ministry denied striking the Lavra, claiming the blaze was caused by a misfire of a U.S.-made Patriot interceptor; Ukraine's SBU security service countered by publishing fragments of a Russian Geran-2 (Shahed-type) strike drone it said hit the cathedral.
- Ukrainian drone strikes killed three people in the Russian city of Tula, south of Moscow, on Sunday — a retaliatory dimension of the mutual escalation that the DW headline "Ukraine strikes Russia's industrial facilities" highlights as the wider cross-coverage frame.
- Kyiv Mayor Vitaliy Klitschko said residential buildings, a museum, and one of Ukraine's oldest film studios were also hit; on Sadova Street, a 1.5-metre-deep crater from intercepted missile debris destroyed family bungalows, with residents saying there were no shelters nearby.
- The attack came hours after Zelensky, Putin, and Trump held separate phone calls to discuss ending the war, with Ukraine's air force reporting it shot down 50 missiles and 582 drones while impacts still shook the capital.
Why it matters: The strike hit a UNESCO-listed religious site sacred to Orthodox Christians in both Ukraine and Russia, and its timing — hours after Trump held separate birthday calls with Zelensky and Putin — directly complicates the diplomatic path the G7 meeting was meant to advance. Zelensky now arrives at Evian with an urgent Patriot-missile request and a powerful symbolic outrage to rally support, while Russia's competing denial (blaming a Patriot misfire) previews the information war that will shadow any negotiation.
