In the early hours of June 15, Russia launched a massive barrage of missiles and drones against Ukraine, including its capital city, Kyiv. Despite the effectiveness of Ukrainian air defenses (50 missiles were intercepted and over 500 drones downed), the attacks killed at least five people and wounded more than 30 in the capital alone, severely damaged apartment buildings, and struck a market. But the image that captured global attention is that of the golden domes of Dormition Cathedral surrounded by smoke and fire. Dormition Cathedral is part of the Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra – the Monastery of the Caves – a monastic complex that also sustained damage during the barrage (hereinafter, “the Lavra”).
The cathedral was reportedly struck by a Russian Shahed-type drone. Metropolitan Epiphanius, head of the Orthodox Church of Ukraine, condemned the attack as “a crime against humanity, against history, against Christianity.” At the same time, Ukraine’s foreign minister labeled the assault “attacks on humanity’s shared cultural heritage.” President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, attending the G-7 meeting, described the strike on the cathedral as “one of Russia’s most serious crimes against Christian culture to date.”
Russia’s Ministry of Defense countered that a malfunctioning U.S.-supplied Patriot interceptor missile damaged the religious complex, and Russia’s Permanent Mission to UNESCO promptly claimed: “the Russian side strictly adheres to its obligations under the 1954 Hague Convention for the Protection of Cultural Property.” Ukrainian authorities, by contrast, reported recovering fragments of a Geran-2 (Russia’s designation for a Shahed-type one-way attack drone) at the site and released images of the debris. If accurate, those reports are inconsistent with Russia’s Patriot missile account. In any event, as of this writing, Russia has offered no publicly available evidence supporting its assertion.
Founded in 1051, the complex is among the most sacred sites of Orthodox monasticism. It houses the relics of numerous saints, precious manuscripts, and extensive Byzantine and Ukrainian Baroque art. Dormition Cathedral, completed in 1078, was destroyed during World War II; it was subsequently consecrated in 2000 after its reconstruction. UNESCO has included the Lavra, together with the Dormition Cathedral, on its World Heritage List as a “masterpiece of Ukrainian art.” In September 2023, UNESCO provisionally inscribed the Lavra on the International List of Cultural Property under Enhanced Protection pursuant to the 1999 Second Protocol to the 1954 Hague Convention (see below).
Russian forces have inflicted severe damage to Ukrainian religious and cultural property throughout Ukraine. Since the full-scale invasion began in February 2022, UNESCO has verified damage to at least 536 cultural sites, including 154 that are religious in character. Destruction of religious and cultural property is hardly unique to this conflict. Examples range from the ruins of Berlin’s Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church, destroyed during World War II, to the widespread, systematic destruction of mosques, churches, monasteries, and historical sites, such as Dubrovnik’s Old Town, during the conflicts in the Balkans in the 1990s. And the destruction of shrines and mausoleums in Timbuktu by Ansar Dine and al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb has resulted in the first stand-alone conviction at the International Criminal Court (ICC) for attacking cultural property (Al Mahdi).
The strikes on the Lavra implicate a range of protections under the law of armed conflict (LOAC). These protections, which extend to civilian objects, cultural property, and religious facilities, are found in both treaty and customary LOAC. They also form the basis for numerous international criminal law offenses. As will become evident, the law is crystal clear. And as is usually the case, whether violations occurred is fact-dependent.
Protected as a Civilian Object
Although there is a tendency to focus on the special protection of religious and cultural objects whenever such institutions are attacked, the most fundamental layer of protection afforded by LOAC lies in the principle of distinction. Article 48 of the 1977 Additional Protocol I (AP I), to which both Ukraine and Russia are Party, sets forth the principle in a manner universally considered to reflect customary international law, and therefore binding on all States: “Parties to the conflict shall at all times distinguish between the civilian population and combatants and between civilian objects and military objectives and accordingly shall direct their operations only against military objectives.” The International Court of Justice has described it as a “cardinal principle” of LOAC (Nuclear Weapons, ¶ 78).
The principle of distinction is operationalized in Article 52(1) of AP I, which provides, “Civilian objects shall not be the object of attack or of reprisals. Civilian objects are all objects which are not military objectives” (see also ICRC, Customary IHL, rule 7). Article 52(2) limits qualification as a military objective to those objects that “by their nature, location, purpose or use make an effective contribution to military action” and whose destruction offers “a definite military advantage.” Thus, unless the Lavra was being used (or was going to be used in the future) by the Ukrainian military forces, it undeniably consisted of civilian objects entitled to protection from attack. Not even Russia disputes this point.
And even if there were some degree of doubt, Article 52(3) of AP I would impose a rebuttable presumption of civilian status: “In case of doubt whether an object which is normally dedicated to civilian purposes, such as a place of worship…, is being used to make an effective contribution to military action, it shall be presumed not to be so used” (see also DoD Law of War Manual, § 5.4.3.4). This presumption is especially significant as it places the burden of establishing the status of a targeted object on the attacking party.
To characterize the Lavra solely as a civilian object would, however, significantly understate the level of protection LOAC affords it because it also benefits from overlapping protections as a place of worship, a cultural monument, and a World Heritage site under enhanced protection, as explained below.
Protected as a Place of Worship
Religious property has long been protected under LOAC. For instance, Article 27 of the Regulations annexed to the 1899 Hague Convention II provides, “In seizures and bombardments all necessary steps should be taken to spare as far as possible edifices devoted to religion…, provided they are not used at the same time for military purposes.” Nearly identical language appears in Article 27 of the annexed Regulations to the 1907 Hague Convention IV. The International Military Tribunal at Nuremberg concluded that the Hague Regulations were “recognized by all civilized nations, and were regarded as declaratory of the laws and customs of war,” in other words, customary in character (Judgment, page 80). The ICJ reaffirmed that conclusion in its Nuclear Weapons advisory opinion, observing that “these fundamental rules are to be observed by all States whether or not they have ratified the conventions that contain them, because they constitute intransgressible principles of international customary law” (¶ 79).
Although the 1949 Geneva Conventions did not contain provisions directly prohibiting attacks on places of worship as a matter of treaty law, that shortfall was remedied in the 1977 Additional Protocol I to those instruments. Article 53 provides,
Without prejudice to the provisions of the Hague Convention for the Protection of Cultural Property in the Event of Armed Conflict of 14 May 1954, and of other relevant international instruments, it is prohibited: (a) to commit any acts of hostility directed against the historic monuments, works of art or places of worship which constitute the cultural or spiritual heritage of peoples; (b) to use such objects in support of the military effort; (c) to make such objects the object of reprisals.
This is broader protection than that codified in the 1907 Hague Regulations. Whereas Article 27 of the Hague Regulations requires parties “to spare, as far as possible,” Article 53 prohibits “any act of hostility directed against” places of worship that “constitute the … spiritual heritage of peoples,” which the Lavra self-evidently does. Article 53 is also broader than AP I, Article 52’s protection of civilian objects: the latter applies only to operations qualifying as “attacks” (under AP I, art. 49), while Article 53 includes “any act arising from the conflict which has or can have a substantial detrimental effect on the protected objects” (ICRC, Commentary, ¶ 2070). If Russia intentionally attacked the Lavra, there is no doubt that Russia would have breached this particular obligation, given the Lavra’s obvious significance as a place of spiritual heritage. If not, the attack would likely still have violated other LOAC prohibitions discussed below.
Protected as Cultural Property
In addition to being protected as religious property, the Lavra qualifies for protection as cultural property. The close relationship between the two categories was evident in AP I, Article 53, which extends protection to both cultural and spiritual heritage. In addition to that article, cultural property protection is afforded by the 1954 Hague Convention for the Protection of Cultural Property in the Event of Armed Conflict, to which both Russia and Ukraine are Party. Article 1 of the Convention defines cultural property as including, inter alia,
movable or immovable property of great importance to the cultural heritage of every people, such as monuments of architecture, art or history, whether religious or secular; archaeological sites; groups of buildings which, as a whole, are of historical or artistic interest; works of art; manuscripts, books and other objects of artistic, historical or archaeological interest; as well as scientific collections and important collections of books or archives or of reproductions of the property defined above.
The operative provision of the Convention is Article 4(1), which requires Parties to “respect cultural property situated … within the territory of other High Contracting Parties… by refraining from any act of hostility directed against such property.” Reprisals against such cultural property are likewise barred. Article 4 emphasizes that this protection “may be waived only in cases where military necessity imperatively requires such a waiver.”
It must be noted that not every religious facility qualifies for this protection. As the U.S. Department of Defense Law of War Manual explains, “Ordinary property (such as churches or works of art) that are not of great importance to the cultural heritage of every people would not qualify as cultural property, although such property may benefit from other protections, such as those afforded civilian objects or enemy property” (§ 5.18.1.2).
Nevertheless, the Article 1 definition clearly encompasses the Lavra on multiple grounds. It is an architectural and historical monument that contains precious religious art and is a complex of exceptional cultural, religious, and artistic significance. This religious, historical, artistic, and cultural significance is evidenced by UNESCO’s inclusion of the Lavra on the World Heritage list in 1990. To be clear, World Heritage status is not, in itself, the source of a LOAC prohibition on attacking the site. Rather, it is compelling evidence that the Lavra falls within the categories of cultural and spiritual heritage to which LOAC’s special protections attach.
In 1999, the Second Protocol to the 1954 Hague Cultural Property Convention, ratified by both Russia and Ukraine, established a tiered system of protection. It provides “enhanced protection” for cultural property of “the greatest importance for humanity.” Article 10 sets out three cumulative conditions for such enhanced protection.
Cultural property may be placed under enhanced protection provided that it meets the following three conditions: (a) it is cultural heritage of the greatest importance for humanity; (b) it is protected by adequate domestic legal and administrative measures recognising its exceptional cultural and historic value and ensuring the highest level of protection; (c) it is not used for military purposes or to shield military sites and the Party which has control over it has made a declaration confirming that it will not be so used.
The Lavra clearly satisfies all three. In September 2023, UNESCO’s Committee for the Protection of Cultural Property in the Event of Armed Conflict, at Ukraine’s request, held an extraordinary session and provisionally added 20 Ukrainian cultural properties to the International List of Cultural Property under Enhanced Protection, including the Lavra. During the session, the Committee adopted a declaration condemning Russian missile attacks on “historical buildings of cultural significance,” urged Russia to comply with its obligations under Article 4 of the 1954 Convention, and emphasized that destroying cultural property is a war crime. In the immediate aftermath of the June 15 strike, Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister and Culture Minister Tetiana Berezhna underscored the Lavra’s enhanced-protection status under the Second Protocol regime.
By Article 12 of the Second Protocol, “Parties to a conflict shall ensure the immunity of cultural property under enhanced protection by refraining from making such property the object of attack.” The Protocol’s reference to “immunity … under enhanced protection” underscores the prohibition’s strictness. Article 13 provides that a property loses this immunity only if “by its use” it has “become a military objective.” And even then, an attack must be the only feasible means of terminating the use of the property that rendered it a military objective; all feasible precautions in attack must be taken; the attack must be ordered at a high level of operational command unless circumstances do not permit; there must be advance warning before the attack, if possible; and the enemy must be given reasonable time “to redress the situation.” Additionally, note that Article 6 of the Protocol subjects the military necessity waiver set forth in Article 4 of the 1954 Convention to such limitations as well for Party States like Russia and Ukraine.
This enhanced protection regime also has criminal law implications. Article 15(1)(b) of the Second Protocol labels an attack against cultural property under enhanced protection a “serious violation” by those who commit the offense, and Article 15(2) requires States Parties to criminalize the offense in their domestic law. Article 16 imposes obligations on Parties to pass legislation necessary to establish jurisdiction over certain offenders.
The ICRC has asserted, correctly so in my estimation, the customary law status of the requirement to avoid damage to cultural property, including religious facilities, and the prohibition on attacking cultural property. Rule 38 of its Customary International Humanitarian Law Study provides,
Rule 38. Each party to the conflict must respect cultural property:
A. Special care must be taken in military operations to avoid damage to buildings dedicated to religion, art, science, education or charitable purposes and historic monuments unless they are military objectives.
B. Property of great importance to the cultural heritage of every people must not be the object of attack unless imperatively required by military necessity.
The obligations captured in this Rule are well-accepted. For instance, in 2017, the U.N. Security Council unanimously deplored and condemned “the unlawful destruction of cultural heritage, inter alia destruction of religious sites and artefacts, … in the context of armed conflicts.” The Council explained that “directing unlawful attacks against sites and buildings dedicated to religion… may constitute, under certain circumstances and pursuant to international law, a war crime and that perpetrators of such attacks must be brought to justice” (Resolution 2347). Along the same lines, the DOD Law of War Manual notes, “Certain treaty obligations with respect to cultural property may only apply on the territory of Parties to the 1954 Hague Cultural Property Convention, but the United States has previously identified some of these obligations as customary international law” (§ 5.18).
Indiscriminate and Terror Attacks
If the Russian barrage was directed at the Lavra, it violated each of the prohibitions set forth above. But the June 15 barrage, which involved some 70 missiles and many hundreds of drones launched nearly simultaneously at Kyiv, a densely populated capital with multiple UNESCO World Heritage Sites, religious and historical buildings and monuments, and extensive civilian infrastructure, also raises serious questions in other regards.
First, the attacks may have been “indiscriminate” in violation of Additional Protocol I, Articles 51(4)(a) and 51(5)(a). The former prohibits attacks that are “not directed at a specific military objective.” The latter treats as indiscriminate “an attack by bombardment by any methods or means which treats as a single military objective a number of clearly separated and distinct military objectives located in a city, town, village, or other area containing a similar concentration of civilians or civilian objects.” Both provisions are undoubtedly customary in character (ICRC, Customary IHL, Rule 11; DoD Law of War Manual, § 5.2.2).
In this conflict, Russia has repeatedly carried out attacks that raise precisely these concerns. Assuming, solely for the sake of discussion, that the attack was not intentionally directed at the Lavra, the June 15 barrage would nevertheless almost certainly qualify, given the number of missiles and drones launched into Kyiv, as an indiscriminate attack on the basis that it failed to target specific Ukrainian military objectives. And even if Russia claimed it was targeting military objectives, it would seem clear that Russia had treated Kyiv’s densely populated historic center, with its concentration of civilian objects and protected sites, as a single target area.
Second, the attacks may have constituted unlawful “terror attacks” in violation of Additional Protocol I, Article 51(2), which prohibits “[a]cts or threats of violence the primary purpose of which is to spread terror among the civilian population.” This prohibition is also undoubtedly customary in character (ICRC, Customary IHL, Rule 2; DoD Law of War Manual, § 5.2.2; Galić, Appeals Chamber Judgment ¶¶ 86-104). The legal threshold for qualifying as a “terror attack” is demanding, for it is not enough that an attack foreseeably terrorizes civilians; spreading terror must be its primary purpose. Still, the systematic destruction of religious and cultural sites across Ukraine is difficult to attribute entirely to targeting error or military necessity. A pattern of this scale and consistency, involving objects of profound significance to the Ukrainian people, is strong evidence of such a purpose. At a minimum, the June 15 barrage and Russia’s broader pattern of strikes into Ukrainian population centers warrant close scrutiny under the prohibition on terror attacks.
Proportionality and Precautions in Attack
Even if the drone attacks that damaged the Lavra were in fact directed at a nearby military objective (there is no evidence they were), any foreseeable harm to the Lavra would factor into an assessment of whether the rule of proportionality and the requirement to take precautions in attack were satisfied. The former, set forth most prominently in AP I, Article 51(5)(b), and reflective of customary law (ICRC, Customary IHL, Rule 14), prohibits attacks expected to cause incidental civilian harm that is “excessive” relative to the “concrete and direct military advantage anticipated” to result from the operation. The partial or total destruction of an eleventh-century monastery and cathedral housing irreplaceable art and sacred relics–and designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site under enhanced protection–is not harm that would be easily justified on this basis, except by a military objective of truly exceptional value.
The precautionary obligations set out in AP I, Article 57(2), are equally demanding. Taken together, they require those who plan, approve, and execute an attack to do everything feasible in the circumstances to minimize harm to civilians and civilian objects (see also ICRC, Customary IHL, Rules 15-21). Indeed, Article 57(2) highlights the need to verify that the targeted object is not entitled to special protection, with the ICRC’s Commentary to the provision emphasizing that this includes “cultural objects or places of worship,” cross-referencing back to Article 53 (¶ 2194).
Whether these rules might have been violated, as with those set forth above, turns on facts not yet fully established, such as the target, its location, and any precautionary measures taken in the course of the attack. What can be stated with confidence is that even if the Lavra was not directly attacked and the attack was not indiscriminate, the Lavra’s prominence and protected status set a demanding standard against which Russian conduct will ultimately be measured.
International Criminal Responsibility
The violations above, if established, would constitute internationally wrongful acts by Russia under the law of state responsibility. However, the underlying conduct also gives rise to potential individual criminal responsibility.
Although Russia is not a Party to the Rome Statute, which founded the ICC, Ukraine became a Party in January 2025 (it had earlier made Article 12(3) declarations accepting the Court’s jurisdiction as a non-Party). Under the Rome Statute, “[i]ntentionally directing attacks against civilian objects” (art. 8(2)(b)(ii)) and “[i]ntentionally directing attacks against buildings dedicated to religion, education, art, science or charitable purposes, historic monuments … provided they are not military objectives” (art. 8(2)(b)(ix)) constitute war crimes. If the Lavra was intentionally targeted, both provisions would be implicated. So too would their customary international criminal law counterparts, thereby opening the door to the exercise of universal jurisdiction over the crimes by any State.
The leading case before the ICC on this matter is Al Mahdi, the Court’s first conviction for intentionally attacking cultural property. As noted above, it involved the destruction of historic and religious monuments in Timbuktu, Mali. The Court’s characterization of the offense is particularly significant here, for the case also involved World Heritage Sites. As it pointed out, “all the sites but one … were UNESCO World Heritage sites and, as such, their attack appears to be of particular gravity as their destruction does not only affect the direct victims of the crimes, namely the faithful and inhabitants of Timbuktu, but also people throughout Mali and the international community” (¶ 80). The Court also observed, “the fact that the targeted buildings were not only religious buildings but had also a symbolic and emotional value for the inhabitants of Timbuktu was relevant in assessing the gravity of the crime committed” (¶ 79).
The International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) also addressed the protection of religious and cultural property in several cases. Prominent among these was Strugar (¶¶ 226-232, 310). In that case, the Trial Chamber convicted a commander responsible for shelling Dubrovnik’s Old Town, which, like the Lavra, was a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The relevant provision of the ICTY’s Statute established “destruction or wilful damage done to institutions dedicated to religion, charity and education, the arts and sciences, historic monuments and works of art and science” as a war crime within the Tribunal’s jurisdiction (art. 3(d); Strugar was also convicted for wanton destruction). The judgment found that Article 3(d) “is a rule of international humanitarian law which not only reflects customary international law but is applicable to both international and non-international armed conflicts” (¶ 230).
In doing so, the Tribunal cited the finding in an earlier companion case, Jokić, that also involved shelling the Old Town, noting with approval that the Trial Chamber in that case found that “since it is a serious violation of international humanitarian law to attack civilian buildings, it is a crime of even greater seriousness to direct an attack on an especially protected site, such as the Old Town” (Strugar, ¶ 232, citing Jokić, ¶ 53). The parallels between the ICC and ICTY cases and the Lavra attacks are self-evident: a purported attack on a UNESCO-listed religious and cultural monument of significance to the international community.
In short, the attack on the Lavra was not merely a highly likely violation of LOAC by Russia, but also one or more possible war crimes by those involved under international criminal law. They open the door to individual accountability, including those up the chain of command under the principle of command responsibility.
Concluding Thoughts
The strike on the Kyiv Pechersk Lavra and its Dormition Cathedral illustrates what has become a grim pattern in Russia’s conduct of the war – the systematic destruction of Ukrainian religious and cultural property. Over four years of conflict, Russian forces have provided something of a master class in violations of the law of armed conflict and war crimes. Barring the revelation of additional facts to the contrary, which is unlikely, the June 15 attack on one of Eastern Christendom’s most sacred and legally protected sites ranks among the most egregious.
However, the law on point leaves no room for doubt. The Lavra is protected as a civilian object, a place of worship, cultural property, and a site enjoying the enhanced protection as formally recognized by UNESCO pursuant to the 1999 Second Protocol. Taken together with other protections, such as the rule of proportionality, these safeguards were intended to comprehensively shield the Lavra from harm during this armed conflict. Regrettably, while that is true in law, it proved untrue in fact.
