Russia Ukraine war latest: Unesco sounds alarm as historic cathedral badly damaged in deadly Odesa airstrikes

Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky has called for more air defence systems “for our entire territory, for all our cities and communities”.

“Ukraine needs a full-fledged sky shield – this is the only way to defeat Russian missile terror,” he tweeted.

Russian president Vladimir Putin and Belarusian president Alexander Lukashenko were meeting on Sunday in St Petersburg, two days after Moscow warned Poland that any aggression against its neighbour and ally Belarus would be considered an attack on Russia.

Mr Putin announced at the start of the meeting that talks would also take place on Monday, and declared that Kyiv’s counter-offensive had failed.

Mr Lukashenko said that Wagner troops, who launched joint drills with the Belarusian military on Thursday, almost a month after their short-lived rebellion against Moscow, wanted to go west “on an excursion to Warsaw, to Rzeszow” in Poland, but that Belarus would not allow them to relocate.

“I am keeping them in central Belarus, like we agreed. … We are controlling what is happening” with Wagner, he said.

A deal was struck after a failed mutiny by Wagner troops aginst president Putin, under which the mercenaries would move to Belarus in return for charges against them relating to the uprising being dropped.

Mr Putin said the fighters could either leave for Belarus, come under the command of the defence ministry or go back to their families.

U.S. secretary of state Antony Blinken said Ukraine has taken back about 50% of the territory that Russia seized, although Kyiv’s counteroffensive will extend several months.

“It’s already taken back about 50% of what was initially seized,” Blinken said in an interview to CNN on Sunday.

“These are still relatively early days of the counteroffensive. It is tough,” he said, adding: “It will not play out over the next week or two. We’re still looking I think at several months.”

Local residents have joined in with the clean-up effort after a missile attack destroyed an Orthodox cathedral in Odesa, killing one and injuring many more.

One of the women who came to help with the cleanup said she loved the Transfiguration Cathedral “for its tranquility and grace.”

“When you enter this church, you feel like you’re beyond the world,” said Liudmyla, who only gave her first name.

“I have a feeling that God, to protect apartments, took this pain, this explosion upon himself.”

Anna Fetchenko, who came to Odesa for a volunteer meeting, also pitched in to clear the debris.

“I wanted to go to the seaside, but last night was so frightening that I cried for the first time in 2023,” she said.

“This is our Ukrainian heritage, and now it’s taken away from us.”

Later on Sunday, Archdeacon Andrii Palchuk urged people to gather in front of the destroyed part of the cathedral for an outdoor service and to pray in front of a sacred icon that “miraculously survived.”

“We will pray that it protects us from the Russians,” he said.

The cathedral belongs to the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, which has been accused of links to Russia. The church has insisted that it’s loyal to Ukraine, has denounced the Russian invasion from the start and has even declared its independence from Moscow.

But Ukrainian security agencies have claimed that some in the Ukrainian church have maintained close ties with Moscow. They’ve raided numerous holy sites of the church and later posted photos of rubles, Russian passports and leaflets with messages from the Moscow patriarch as proof that some church officials have been loyal to Russia.

Odesa’s historic center was designated an endangered World Heritage Site by UNESCO earlier this year despite Russian opposition.

The historical Transfiguration Cathedral in Odesa, Ukraine has been badly damaged by Russian strikes, the city council said.

Footage shows debris scattered across the floor of the site after missiles hit the port city overnight, which killed at least one person and injured 19 more.

Ukrainian MP Oleksiy Goncharenko visited the damaged cathedral on Sunday 23 July and shared a video calling for more protection.

“Again Russia used all types of missiles to destroy our city,” he said.

“I address the world, Odesa needs more protection.”

The cathedral was founded in 1794.

A Ukrainian attack drone blasted a Russian ammunition depot in central Crimea on Saturday, sparking a major explosion.

Sergey Aksyonov, the Kremlin-appointed head of Crimea, said that there have been no immediate reports of casualties, but that authorities were evacuating civilians within a five-kilometre radius.

The Ukrainian military seemed to confirm it had launched the drone strike, after it claimed that it had destroyed an oil depot and Russian arms warehouses in the Krasnohvardiiske region of Crimea, the Ukrainian territory that Moscow illegally annexed from Ukraine in 2014.

Supermarkets have more than doubled their margins on fuel since the start of the war in Ukraine, new analysis suggests.

The RAC said Asda, Tesco, Morrisons and Sainsbury’s were making an average of around 4.7p per litre on fuel sales when the Russian invasion began in February 2022.

The motoring services company found this had increased to around 10p per litre, leading to higher pump prices.

Supermarket fuel margins were 2.3p per litre in 2016.