Cathedral described as ‘the soul of all Ukraine' damaged in Russian attack
A Russian attack has damaged Saint Sophia Cathedral in Kyiv, a UNESCO world heritage site and one of Ukraine 's most significant monuments, according to Ukraine's culture minister.
Mykola Tochytskyi announced on Facebook that the overnight attack struck"at the very heart of our identity again". He called the 11th-century cathedral "the soul of all Ukraine" and a shrine that "survived for centuries".
"Saint Sophia Cathedral in Kyiv, a shrine which survived for centuries and symbolises the birth of our statehood, was damaged," he said.
He added that the blast wave damaged the cornice on the main apse of the landmark. Video from the scene showed pieces of white plaster crumbled to the ground.
This is the first time since the start of the war that the cathedral has been damaged, first deputy director general of the site Vadym Kyrylenko told reporters.
But Russian drones flying close to the ground present a threat amid continuous air attacks on the capital.
"As our security guards say, sometimes (drones) almost touch the crosses on the bell tower 76 meters above the ground," he said.
The cathedral was added to UNESCO's World Heritage list in 1990 for its architectural importance. The United Nations ' heritage body describes the white cathedral and monastery complex with green roofs and golden domes as a symbol of the "new Constantinople" created in the region.
Kyrylenko reported no critical damage but said the almost 1000-year-old site will be inspected by a specialized institute and repaired.
Over a year after Russia's full-scale invasion in February 2022, UNESCO's World Heritage Committee placed the Saint Sophia Cathedral on the list of World Heritage in Danger "due to the threat of destruction the Russian offensive poses" to the monument and integrity of its ancient interiors, mosaics and frescoes.
The site was also vulnerable to shock waves it said.
"It is not only protected by our state, it is protected by the whole world. It is the heritage of the whole world," Kyrylenko said.
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Over the past few years, Nikolai has seen the ups and downs of the funeral trade in his native Ufa, a Russian city in the plains west of the Ural mountains. The coronavirus pandemic, which hit Russia with devastating force, brought an unexpected boom to his family-run business, forcing him to hire extra staff almost overnight to cope with the rise in funeral demand. 'But after Covid, there was a real dip; people just stopped dying in such numbers,' Nikolai said. That lull didn't last. Over the past two and a half years, business has picked up again. Part of the reason: Russia's casualties in its continuing invasion of Ukraine. Few regions in Russia have sent as many men to fight and die in Ukraine as the republic of Bashkortostan, whose capital, Ufa, draws recruits from poorer surrounding areas in search of money. 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In just over three years, Russian fatalities are estimated to be five times higher than the combined death toll from all Soviet and Russian wars between the end of the second world war and the start of the full-scale invasion in 2022. The war in Ukraine has proved far deadlier for the Kremlin than other recent conflicts: Russia's losses are roughly 15 times greater than those suffered during the Soviet Union's decade-long war in Afghanistan, and 10 times higher than in Russia's 13-year war in Chechnya. And it's not just the dead returning in caskets – soldiers with amputated limbs and serious injuries are also coming home, driving a sharp rise in the production of prosthetic limbs. 'We doubled the number of our clients one year into the conflict and since then it has been a steady 10% increase annually,' said Igor Vinogradov, the director of a mid-sized prosthetics and orthopaedics firm in northern Russia. 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The toll compounds the damage from the Covid-19 pandemic, which caused more than a million excess deaths and left lasting scars on Russia's population. Alexander Raksha, an independent demographer and former analyst at Rostat, estimates average male life expectancy has fallen from 68 to 66 since the start of the full-scale invasion. He said the government has made it harder to track the long-term demographic consequences of the ongoing fighting. 'Russia stopped publishing all mortality and life expectancy data for its male population from 2024 onwards,' Raksha said. Russian anti-war activists, inside and outside the country, initially believed the rising number of returning bodies would spark public protests. But Russia's expansive propaganda campaign has portrayed the fallen as heroes, with Vladimir Putin repeatedly touting the idea that dying on the frontlines is more meaningful than enduring a bleak existence in the country's impoverished towns. Responding to a grieving mother during a televised meeting in late 2022, he said: 'Some people die in road accidents, others from alcohol – when they die, it's unclear how. But your son lived, do you understand? He fulfilled his purpose.' Instead of widespread public discontent, the opposite now appears to be true: many Russians who have lost relatives are urging the Kremlin to press on, convinced that the losses must be justified. Among them is Dmitry Shkrebets, whose son, Yegor, was one of more than three dozen sailors killed when Ukraine struck Russia's Black Sea flagship, the Moskva, in 2022. Shkrebets now runs a blog in which he routinely urges Russia to step up its attacks on Ukraine. 'Any compromise with Ukraine would be a betrayal of the country. A betrayal of the blood our sons have shed,' Shkrebets said. 'We need to see this through to the end,' he said, adding that he hoped Russia would soon launch an offensive on the Ukrainian cities of Odesa and Mykolaiv. To maintain support among grieving families, the Kremlin has also resorted to offering generous payouts to the relatives of the dead and wounded. According to a study by the Re:Russia thinkthank, the government allocated at least 1.2tn rubles (about $15.3bn) in 2024 alone for compensation to the families of the dead and injured. The sheer scale of the losses – and the money involved – has given rise to dedicated message boards and online discussion groups, where relatives of the deceased exchange advice on how to access death benefits, or vent their frustrations about long-absent family members suddenly reappearing to claim a share of the compensation. 'My husband signed the contract a few days before we got married. He died shortly after. Now his children from a previous marriage are suing me to take away the death payouts … Please help!' read one recent post on VKontakte, Russia's equivalent of Facebook. For now, Moscow appears able to replenish its manpower for the war, allowing it to slowly advance and capture more territory in Ukraine despite the human cost. Military recruitment continues to surge across many regions, with signing bonuses for contracts to join the war reaching record highs – up to 2m rubles (about $25,000). Janis Kluge, a researcher on the Russian economy at the German Institute for International and Security Affairs, estimates Russia recruited 89,601 men between January and March 2025, based on federal spending on sign-up bonuses. 'This represents a 22% increase over the same period last year,' Kluge said. Nikolai, the funeral home director, said he's closely watching the ongoing peace talks between Russia and Ukraine to determine his next business move. 'Of course, I hope this ends soon and the deaths stop,' he said, noting with disappointment the talks appear to have stalled. 'It just feels wrong to be making money off young guys dying.'
