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The recent wave of devastating Russian attacks targeting Odesa and other key Ukrainian port cities marks a “calamitous turn” in the 15-month war, a senior UN official told the Security Council on Wednesday.
The Council meeting was convened following the missile strikes on Sunday which damaged the centuries-old Transfiguration Cathedral, the first and foremost Orthodox church in the historic city. Other landmarks in the city centre, a protected World Heritage Site, were also damaged in the attack, which killed one person and injured several others.
CULTURE UNDER FIRE
Khaled Khiari, UN Assistant Secretary-General for political and peacebuilding affairs, noted that this was far from the first attack against Ukrainian culture and heritage. Since the start of the war, UN cultural agency UNESCO has verified damage to 274 cultural sites in Ukraine, including 117 religious sites.
“As the Secretary-General stated this weekend, we are concerned about the threat that this war increasingly poses to Ukrainian culture and heritage, and we urge the Russian Federation to immediately cease attacks against cultural property protected by widely ratified international normative instruments,” he said. Learn More /...
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