1 Dead in Odessa as Russia Attacks Cathedral and Apartment Buildings

The civilian toll is rising in Odessa, the Ukrainian port city that was relentlessly attacked by Russian forces last week after the Kremlin pulled out of an agreement that allowed the export of Ukrainian grain through the Black Sea.

One person has been killed and 22 others, including four children, have been injured in Russian missile attacks on Odessa. Ukrainian officials report this. At least six residential buildings were damaged, as well as an Orthodox cathedral where rescuers recovered an icon from the rubble dedicated to the city’s patron saint.

“There can be no excuse for Russian evil,” President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine said of the attacks in a Telegram post on Sunday, adding, “There will certainly be retaliation.”

With its busy port, Odessa has long been a crucial economic link for Ukraine to the rest of the world economy. Although the city had been subject to attacks earlier in the war, there was a fleeting sense of normalcy as it had been shipping agricultural products for almost a year despite a wartime blockade by Russia.

But that came to an end last week, after Russia announced it would end its participation in the Black Sea grain deal, an agreement that had helped stabilize food prices around the world. Moscow has said the pact was in favor of Ukraine.

In recent days, Russia has launched some of its most furious attacks on Odessa, destroying grain that could have fed tens of thousands of people for a year. The attacks also killed at least one other civilian and injured at least two others. The Kremlin has threatened more hostilities and says it will treat any ships sailing around Ukrainian ports in the Black Sea as military targets.

The The cathedral is Odessa’s largest Orthodox cathedral and has remained aligned with the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, which is supported by Moscow, despite the move by many parishes in Ukraine to join a branch loyal to Kiev in the wake of last year’s full-scale invasion by Russia.

Erected in 1794, the building, also known as the Transfiguration Cathedral, became the main church in Novorossiya, the name the Russian Empire gave to the lands along the Black Sea and Crimea, which are part of present-day Ukraine. It was destroyed during a Soviet campaign against religion in 1936 and was not rebuilt until after the fall of the Soviet Union.

In 2010, Patriarch Kirill, the leader of the Russian Orthodox Church, dedicated the newly rebuilt cathedral, a sign of the close ties between the church and Moscow. Twelve years later, after Moscow launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Kirill “blessed” the war effort, saying the sins of the Russians fighting in Ukraine would be “washed away.”

There was no immediate response from the Patriarch or the Kremlin to the damage to the cathedral on Sunday.

Russia’s defense ministry said it attacked military infrastructure in Odessa and blamed the damage to the cathedral on “actions” by Ukrainian air defense teams.

On Saturday, Mr Zelensky warned of the dire consequences of Russian actions in the Black Sea.

“Any destabilization in this region and the disruption of our export routes will mean problems with associated consequences for everyone in the world,” he said in his nocturnal address. Food prices could rise, he said.

The grain deal, struck between the United Nations and Turkey about a year ago, helped stabilize food prices around the world. But now Russia’s withdrawal from the deal could again threaten food security in several countries already reeling from multiple crises, especially in the Horn of Africa.

Mr Zelensky is calling for more help from the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. After meeting on Saturday with the alliance’s secretary general Jens Stoltenberg, Mr Zelensky said the Ukraine-NATO Council, a new body that hopes to deepen the alliance between Ukraine and its allies, will soon hold a meeting on the situation in Odessa and the Black Sea.

Also on Sunday, President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia met with President Aleksandr G. Lukashenko of Belarus in St. Petersburg, the Belarusian state news agency reported. It was one of the first public meetings between the two leaders since Lukashenko negotiated an end to the brief mutiny of the Russian mercenary group Wagner last month. The two allies would discuss security, bilateral relations and other issues, the news agency reported.