A Russian drone strike on Saturday gutted Kharkiv’s Art Museum, one of the largest art collections in eastern Ukraine, setting a fire covering 1,200 square metres and killing five emergency workers who were responding to other strikes in the city. Journalists, museum staff and local residents formed human chains in the smoke to pass historical canvases out of the burning building before the fire could reach them.

The roof and attic floors of the museum building were largely destroyed in the strike. Adjacent structures also sustained damage from the blast and the heat of the sustained fire. Firefighters worked for several hours to bring the blaze under control. By the time the fire was out, significant portions of the interior were damaged, including display halls that had housed works dating back to the 17th century.

Witnesses described a frantic rescue effort. Ordinary residents who had heard the explosion arrived alongside museum staff to help carry artworks to storage areas away from the fire. Photographs posted online showed people running across the courtyard carrying framed canvases through clouds of smoke. Firefighters confirmed that a substantial number of works were evacuated before the fire penetrated the galleries.

Five emergency workers were killed in a separate strike on Kharkiv during the same overnight attack. The city, which lies in northeastern Ukraine close to the Russian border, has been one of the most frequently targeted in the war. It has been subjected to repeated drone and missile attacks since 2022, and civilian infrastructure across the city has been hit multiple times.

The attack on the museum came on the same night that Russian forces struck the Kyiv Pechersk Lavra monastery complex in the capital, setting the roof of the Dormition Cathedral ablaze. The simultaneous targeting of two major cultural sites in a single overnight operation drew particular condemnation from international heritage organisations and European governments.

Ukraine’s Culture Minister said the destruction of the museum represented a deliberate attempt to erase Ukraine’s cultural memory and called on UNESCO and the International Criminal Court to document the attack as a potential war crime. Russia has not commented specifically on the museum strike.

Zelensky cited both strikes when speaking about his planned attendance at the G7 summit in Évian this week, where he intends to argue that the pattern of Russian attacks on cultural sites shows why the war cannot end on Moscow’s terms. Ukrainian National News reported that the volume of salvaged artworks was significant, though a full assessment of losses would not be possible until the building was made structurally safe. Restoration of the damaged works and the building itself is expected to take years.