1 in 1 people walk inside Odessa’s Transfiguration Cathedral, which was badly damaged in a Russian missile attack in Odessa, Ukraine, Sunday, July 23, 2023. Photo: AP Photo/Libkos People walk inside Odessa’s Transfiguration Cathedral, which was badly damaged in a Russian missile attack in Odessa, Ukraine, on Sunday, July 23, 2023.
A Russian airstrike on the Ukrainian city of Odessa in the early hours of this Sunday (23) killed one person and injured 19 others, including four children. The port city’s largest cathedral was severely damaged by the bombing.
“Odessa: another night monster attack,” Oleh Kiper, governor of the region in southern Ukraine, said in a Telegram message. According to him, 14 people were hospitalized. Another six houses and apartment buildings were destroyed.
According to the city’s military administration, the SpasoPreobrazhenskyi Cathedral, or Transfiguration Cathedral, was badly damaged in the attack. The basilica, consecrated in 1809, belongs to the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (UOC), which is affiliated with Moscow.
“The Kasperovska icon of the Mother of God, the patron saint of Odessa, was recovered from under the rubble,” the government announced on its Telegram channel.
The UOC is the second largest church in Ukraine, although the majority of the country’s Orthodox believers belong to another branch of faith. Ukrainian authorities have accused the UOC of having ties with the Russian Orthodox Church, but the organization claims it severed ties with the Russians in May 2022.
The Russians have been attacking Odessa and other Ukrainian food export facilities on an almost daily basis since last week after withdrawing from a United Nationsbrokered deal that allowed grain to be safely transported from Ukraine.
Russia described the attacks as revenge for a Ukrainian attack on a Russianbuilt bridge to Crimea. Russia has accused Ukraine of using the sea corridor for “terrorist attacks”.