Paris, France – UNESCO on Sunday condemned Russia’s “brazen” attack on Ukraine’s Odesa, which hit several sites in the port city’s World Heritage centre.
“UNESCO is deeply dismayed and condemns in the strongest terms the brazen attack carried out by the Russian forces, which hit several cultural sites in the city centre of Odesa, home to the World Heritage property ‘The Historic Centre of Odesa'”, the Paris-based body said in a statement.
The strike, Russia’s latest attack on the Black Sea city and one of Ukraine’s most important ports following Moscow’s pulling out of a grain deal that allowed Kyiv to export its grain, killed at least two people.
UNESCO chief Audrey Azoulay said it marked “an escalation of violence against (the) cultural heritage of Ukraine”.
The strike notably damaged the Transfiguration Cathedral, originally built in 1794 under imperial Russian rule, demolished under Soviet leader Stalin in 1936 and rebuilt in the 1990s following the Soviet Union collapse.