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What happened to Kyiv's cultural sites on 15 June 2026?
Summary
A retrospective on Russian strikes that hit the Kyiv Pechersk Lavra and the Dovzhenko Film Studios, and on the deaths reported that day.
What did Russian strikes on Kyiv do to the city's cultural landmarks on 15 June 2026? As reported at the time, the Dormition Cathedral in the Kyiv Pechersk Lavra was heavily damaged and set ablaze during the attacks.
The same day, the Dovzhenko Film Studios in Kyiv were also attacked. The reports listed both sites among incidents affecting Ukrainian culture during the Russian invasion.
The human toll
Nine people were reported killed. Among them were five rescue workers who had been attending fires set by strikes in Kharkiv.
The wider setting
Russia began its full-scale invasion of Ukraine on 24 February 2022, escalating a war that began in 2014. Over the course of the fighting, many pieces of Ukrainian cultural heritage have been destroyed, damaged or put at risk. Ukraine's Minister of Culture has described the deliberate destruction and looting of more than 500 cultural heritage sites as cultural genocide, and it is considered a war crime.
The strikes of 15 June 2026 added the Lavra's Dormition Cathedral and the Dovzhenko studios to the list of cultural sites hit in the war.
