Landmark Ukraine church hit by Russian shelling
Russian shelling Thursday hit a landmark church in Ukraine and left multiple people wounded, according to Ukrainian authorities.
St. Catherine’s Cathedral in the southern city of Kherson sustained damage, and four Ukrainian emergency workers were injured in another round of shelling while extinguishing the fire, the Ukrainian Emergency Service said in a Telegram post. The prosecutor general’s office said four others were injured in the first shelling attack that also hit a trolleybus.
The church was built in 1781 and was once the burial location for Prince Grigory Potemkin, an 18th-century commander who helped carry out Russian control in the southeastern parts of Ukraine and annexed the Crimean Peninsula. His remains were removed from the church last year amid the war.
Russia occupied Kherson for nearly nine months before Ukrainian forces recaptured the city in November of last year. Since then, the city has been a target of frequent Russian artillery and drone attacks.
The shelling follows Russia’s missile attacks in the Ukrainian Black Sea city of Odesa last month, where the historic Transfiguration Cathedral was among 25 landmarks damaged across the city. At least one person was killed, and another 22 others were wounded.
Separately, two people were killed in the past day in Russian attacks in eastern Ukraine’s Donetsk and Zaporizhzhia provinces, according to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s office.
The Ukrainian air force said Russia also launched 15 Shahed drones in the Kyiv region, but all were shut down. Ruslan Kravchenko, the governor of Kyiv, said there were no injuries or damage.
Ukraine continues to ramp up its counteroffensive in an effort to bring the war deeper into Russia.
Six Ukrainian drones were also recently downed in the Kaluga region, about 90 miles south of Moscow, according to the Russian Defense Ministry.
The Associated Press contributed.
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