Russians have shifted targets for its attacks on Ukrainian territory, assigning some highly powerful, expensive precise munitions to hit non-military targets like cultural sites and historical structures revered in Ukrainian culture, Newsweek reports.
Last Sunday, Russian missiles targeted Odesa’s historic city center, a UNESCO-designated site of cultural and historical significance, damaging at least 25 historic buildings. Officials say a precision-guided anti-ship Onyx missile, a $1.25 million munition which carries up to 300 kilograms of high explosive charge, was used to destroy the Orthodox Christian Transfiguration Cathedral, a 230-year-old church in Odesa that Russian see as a symbol of Ukrainian independence and has been first destroyed and deconsecrated when the Soviets occupied Ukraine in the 1930s. After Ukraine regained its independence in the 1990s, it restored the structure and dedicated the church in 2003.