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ODESSA, Ukraine — If the largest cathedral in this besieged port city survived Joseph Stalin, it will outlive Vladimir Putin, Myroslav Vdodovych, the chief priest of the Transfiguration Cathedral, said less than a day after a barrage of Russian missiles ripped apart the church along with 24 other monuments across the city.
Odessa, a key port city in the south, has been subject to nighttime missile attacks since the Russian president last week canceled a deal brokered by the United Nations and Turkey that allowed Ukraine to export its grain, easing a global food crisis that had been plaguing developing countries.
Ukraine responded defiantly, launching drone strikes on buildings in Moscow and a munitions depot in Crimea, while clean-up teams and parishioners cleared debris from the cathedral’s littered floors.
“You can damage a church, you can kill a man, but you can’t destroy faith,” said Vdodovych, who wore a black robe and hard hat as dust swirled through a hole in the cathedral’s roof left by a rocket buried two stories below the altar.
At the outset of his brutal war, Putin harbored hopes of occupying Odessa, a historically Russian-speaking city known as the “Pearl of the Black Sea” for its beautiful architecture and history as a vibrant, multi-ethnic cultural hub. But the Russian military faltered, failing even to capture Mykolayiv, the region’s capital just east of Odessa, and the two cities have become symbols of resilience. Instead, Moscow blocked the ports, aiming to choke off Ukraine’s agricultural sector until the grain deal brought relief.
The Kremlin had threatened to pull out of the deal for months, and finally did so last week, just days after Ukraine launched an attack on the Crimean Bridge, destroying part of its roadway in a naval drone attack.
The latest spate of Russian attacks in Ukraine on Monday destroyed grain stores along the Danube, an export route that has gained importance since the collapse of a deal allowing Ukraine to ship its grain across the Black Sea.
The drone-carried Russian attacks caused global wheat and corn futures to surge amid fears that Russia’s latest offensive could erode grain exports. UN Secretary-General António Guterres urged Russia to return to the deal as it is having a devastating impact on “vulnerable countries struggling to feed their people”.
Ukraine is now the most heavily mined country. It will be decades before security is guaranteed.
Romanian President Klaus Iohannis condemned the attacks. “I strongly condemn the recent Russian attacks on Ukrainian civilian infrastructure on the Danube River, very close to Romania,” Iohannis tweeted, adding that the attacks posed “serious security risks in the Black Sea.”
In Odessa, rocket fire killed at least one person and injured several others, while cars were destroyed, windows shattered and other sites damaged, including Zhvanetsky Boulevard, the House of Scientists and a number of historic mansions.
“The Russians aimed their rockets at the historic city center of Odessa, which is under UNESCO protection. “Everything that was built with hard work by great architects is now being destroyed by cynical brutes,” said Oleh Kiper, head of the Odessa regional military administration.
The Transfiguration Cathedral was first destroyed in 1936 during a Stalinist campaign to liberate the Soviet Union from religion. “They tried to blow it up several times, but the walls were so thick they couldn’t do it,” said Vdodovych, the chief priest.
Instead, authorities filled an adjacent bell tower with explosives, “then blew it up and the bell tower fell on the church,” Vdodovych said.
The Soviets’ persistence was matched only by the stoicism that the people of Ukraine carry with them today, he said. “Stalin killed so many people, thousands of them priests, but the Church has not disappeared because we have the support of God,” he added.
The Russian Defense Ministry denied responsibility for the attack on the cathedral, saying the attack only hit areas where “terrorist attacks” were planned. “All targets intended for the attack were destroyed,” it said. (Russia has repeatedly attacked civilian targets in Ukraine, including apartment buildings and hospitals.)
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Ukraine, which has received missile defense systems from the West but is having to ration their deployment due to shortages, is struggling to block Russia’s repeated attacks on Odessa. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has condemned Russia’s attacks, saying “there can be no excuse for Russian evil”.
“As always, this evil will lose and there will definitely be retaliation against Russian terrorists for Odessa,” Zelenskyy said on Sunday. “You will feel that retribution.”
Hours later, drones hit buildings in Moscow, a rarity given the limited range of most of Ukraine’s unmanned aerial vehicles. According to Russian officials, shattered glass fell from the 17th and 18th floors of a tall building in the Russian capital. The wreckage of a second drone was found on Komsomolsky Prospekt, a thoroughfare in central Moscow. Mayor Sergey Sobyanin said two non-residential buildings were hit, but there were no injuries.
In addition, the Russian Defense Ministry said Ukraine had attacked Crimea, the peninsula invaded and annexed by Russia in 2014, with 17 drones, but most were knocked out by air defenses and electronic defenses, the Russian Defense Ministry said. Three drones crashed on the territory of Crimea, there were no injuries, the ministry said. The Washington Post could not independently verify the account. Russia uses Crimea as a base for its armed forces and the Crimean Bridge as a crucial link for supplies from Russia.
The debris in Odessa was far worse than in Moscow or Crimea. Parishioners young and old at the Ukrainian Cathedral worked diligently to clean the floor of the less damaged church entrance so it could be used for upcoming services.
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