At least two people were killed and an 18th century Orthodox Cathedral was severely damaged in Ukraine’s southern port city of Odesa on Sunday morning, amid continuing Russian missile attacks.
The attack drew a pledge of retaliation from Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, who denounced the cathedral strike as a "war crime".
Clergymen rescued icons from rubble inside the badly damaged shrine, which was demolished under Joseph Stalin in 1936 and rebuilt in the 1990s after the collapse of the Soviet Union.
Audrey Azoulay, Unesco's Director General, condemned the "outrageous" attack against culture.
She urged the Russian Federation to "take meaningful action to comply with its obligations under international law, including the 1954 Hague Convention for the Protection of Cultural Property in the Event of Armed Conflict and the 1972 World Heritage Convention".
Since the start of Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Unesco has verified damage to 270 cultural sites, including 116 religious sites.
UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres called on the Kremlin to immediately cease all attacks against civilians, civilian infrastructure and cultural property.
The attacks followed a wave of missile attacks in the city on Friday and Saturday after Russia’s exit from the Black Sea Grain Initiative, a deal that allowed 33 million tonnes of grain to be exported from Ukraine’s southern ports. At least one grain silo was destroyed in the attack.
Russian military sites were targeted in suspected Ukrainian drone and missile attacks in Crimea on Saturday, leading to the evacuation of civilians after a large ammunition storage site exploded