A Russian air attack on Ukraine’s southern port of Odesa early on Sunday killed one, injured nearly 20 and badly damaged an Orthodox cathedral, Ukrainian officials said, adding the icon of the patroness of the city had been retrieved from under the rubble.

“Odesa: another night attack of the monsters,” Oleh Kiper, governor of the Odesa region, said on the Telegram messaging app.

One person was killed and 19 injured, including four children, in the missile attacks that also destroyed six houses and apartment buildings. Fourteen people were hospitalised, he said.

The Spaso-Preobrazhenskyi Cathedral, or the Transfiguration Cathedral, was severely damaged, Odesa’s military administration said. Odesa’s largest church building, it is located in the historic city centre, which is a Unesco world heritage site.

“The Kasperovska icon of the Mother of God, who is the patroness of Odesa, was retrieved from under the rubble,” the administration said on its Telegram channel.

Parts of the building were destroyed, the floors were covered in rubble and chunks were ripped off the cathedral’s ornate walls.

Russia’s defence ministry reported strikes on targets in the area but denied it had struck the cathedral and said the building had probably been hit by a Ukrainian anti-aircraft missile.

Russia has attacked Odesa with missiles and drones several times since it withdrew on Monday from a year-old deal that had allowed for safe exports of Ukraine’s grain from Black Sea ports. Odesa’s ports were the departure point for grain leaving Ukraine in the Turkey and UN-brokered agreement.

President Volodymyr Zelenskiy condemned Sunday’s attack and vowed payback.

“There can be no excuse for Russian evil. As always, this evil will lose. And there will definitely be a retaliation to Russian terrorists for Odesa. They will feel this retaliation,” he said on Twitter.

In its daily briefing, Russia’s defence ministry said it had struck targets “where terrorist attacks were being prepared” in the Odesa area, and that all targets had been destroyed.

Separately, the ministry said Ukrainian reports of a Russian strike on the cathedral were false, and that its targets in Odesa were located “a safe distance” from the cathedral complex. It said that the “probable cause” of the damage to the cathedral was a Ukrainian anti-aircraft missile.

Reuters