Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskyi said on Tuesday that the 11th-century cathedral, with white walls and green domes, was hit in connection with a large-scale Russian attack on the capital.
According to the president, part of the cathedral's facade collapsed due to a pressure wave.
For all people who really know the history and are not strangers to Christianity, every threat of damage or destruction of St. Sofia (cathedral) is absolutely unacceptable, catastrophic, he said.
Ukraine's culture minister calls the cathedral "Ukraine's soul" and that Russia is not only waging war on the country's cities "but also on our culture, our memory and our future."
A representative of the cathedral says that Tuesday's attack was the first since World War II to hit the shrine.
