MOSCOW, June 15 (Reuters) – Russia said on Monday that it did not strike the historic Pechersk Lavra monastery in Kyiv in an overnight attack on military factories in the Ukrainian capital and that a U.S.-made Patriot air defence missile had damaged the religious site.
The UNESCO World Heritage monastery caught fire overnight on Monday in the heaviest Russian air attack on the Ukrainian capital in two weeks. Moscow said its attack had targeted and struck drone manufacturing facilities, while Ukraine and many Western countries accused Russia of striking the monastery.
Russia’s Defence Ministry said that the Patriot missile which it said had damaged the monastery could have misfired because it said Western countries had provided Kyiv with arms whose shelf life had expired.
“The armed forces of the Russian Federation do not plan or carry out strikes against civilian infrastructure,” the Defence Ministry said in a statement.
“According to confirmed reports, the complex of buildings at the Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra was struck by a missile from the American Patriot air defence system. One possible reason for the malfunction of this system could be that Western countries supplied the Kyiv regime with missiles that had expired,” it said.
(Reporting by Reuters; Writing by Lucy PapachristouEditing by Andrew Osborn)
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