UN, Jul 23 UN Secretary General António Guterres condemned the Russian missile strike near Odessa, which, according to him, «damaged Spaso Pre Cathedral of the Obrazhensky,» the official spokesman, Stephane Dujarric, said in a comment.
On Sunday, the Russian Defense Ministry denied the information of the Kyiv regime about the defeat of the Transfiguration Cathedral in Odessa as a result of the use of high-precision weapons. According to the agency, the most likely cause of the destruction of the temple was the fall of a Ukrainian anti-aircraft guided missile as a result of the illiterate actions of the operators of air defense systems, which the Armed Forces of Ukraine deliberately place in residential areas.
«The Secretary General strongly condemns today's Russian missile attack on Odessa, which has injured civilians and damaged the UNESCO-protected Transfiguration Cathedral and other historic buildings in the historic center of Odessa,» Dujarric said.
According to him, the UN Secretary General is concerned about the threat that the conflict increasingly poses «to Ukrainian culture and heritage.» As Dujarric noted, since February 24, 2022, UNESCO has confirmed that damage has been caused to 270 cultural sites in Ukraine, including 116 religious sites.
«The Secretary General also continues to call for an immediate halt to all attacks on civilians and civilian infrastructure,» Dujarric said.
The head of UNESCO, Audrey Azoulay, also condemned the Russian missile attack in the Odessa area.
The Russian Ministry of Defense noted that the planning of strikes with precision-guided weapons against the military and terrorist infrastructure of the Kiev regime is carried out on the basis of information carefully verified and confirmed through several channels, deliberately excluding the defeat of civilian objects where the civilian population is located, as well as objects of cultural and historical heritage.
Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said that damage to the Spaso-Preobraz Women's Cathedral are on the conscience of Kiev and «illiterate» air defense operators, which the Ukrainian army has in residential areas. She drew attention to the inaction of UNESCO, which ignored the dismantling of the monument to Catherine II in Odessa by the Kiev authorities in 2022, but «immediately after that, she decided to start» culturally protecting «the historical center of Odessa, which cannot be called historical after the dismantling of the sculpture of the founder of the city.»