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What the 15 June strikes did to Kyiv's heritage
Summary
A retrospective on the Russian strikes that damaged the Dormition Cathedral and hit the Dovzhenko Film Studios, as reported in the days before 17 June 2026.
What did the Russian strikes of mid-June leave behind in Kyiv? By 17 June 2026, the picture was dominated by damage to two cultural sites in the capital.
As reported at the time, on 15 June the Dormition Cathedral in Kyiv Pechersk Lavra was heavily damaged and set ablaze during Russian strikes on Kyiv. The same reports said nine people were killed, including five rescue workers who had been attending fires set by strikes in Kharkiv.
The Dovzhenko Film Studios in Kyiv were also attacked on 15 June.
A wider pattern of damage
Both sites fall within the toll on Ukrainian culture since Russia began its full-scale invasion on 24 February 2022, an escalation of the war that started in 2014. Many pieces of Ukrainian cultural heritage have been destroyed, damaged or put at risk during the fighting. The destruction and looting of more than 500 Ukrainian cultural heritage sites is considered a war crime, and Ukraine's Minister of Culture has described it as cultural genocide.
The 15 June strikes thus added a cathedral and a film studio in Kyiv to the list of affected cultural sites, while the deaths of rescue workers underlined the human cost of the attacks.
