Ukraine: Russian bombing hits emblematic Soviet skyscraper
Tankers from the 33rd separate mechanized brigade of the Ukrainian Ground Forces fire with a Leopard 2A4 tank during field training at an undisclosed location in Ukraine on October 27, 2024, amid the Russian invasion on Ukraine. – Ukraine said Monday, October 28, 2024, that a Russian bombing had damaged a distinctive early Soviet-era modernist skyscraper. (Photo by Genya SAVILOV / Agence France-Presse)
KYIV — Ukraine said Monday that a Russian bombing had damaged a distinctive early Soviet-era modernist skyscraper that has become a symbol of the heavily attacked northeastern city of Kharkiv.
“There has been a direct hit recorded on the Derzhprom building,” regional governor Oleg Synegubov wrote on Telegram, posting photos showing a hole blasted in the facade, blown-out windows, and smashed interiors.
“With the attack, preliminarily believed to be carried out by guided bombs, the occupiers (Russians) struck a landmark symbol of the city that every Kharkiv inhabitant knows,” the governor said, condemning “Russian terrorism.”
“This is a monument of national significance, a building in the Constructivist style,” he added.
READ: ‘Wiped off the face of the Earth’: How Russia erased a Ukrainian city
Article continues after this advertisementThe attack injured at least six people and also damaged the building of a medical institution, Synegubov said.
Article continues after this advertisementOpened in 1928, the Derzhprom complex of state administrative buildings connected by overhead bridges with a maximum height of 13 stories is considered one of the first Soviet skyscrapers.
It is one of the sites on UNESCO’s Tentative List of monuments for consideration for inclusion in its World Heritage List.
READ: The secret train evacuating wounded Ukrainian soldiers
Ukraine’s branch of the International Council on Monuments and Sites (ICOMOS) in January expressed “special worries” over the building on the city’s huge central Freedom Square due to “almost daily shelling.”
The building suffered minor damage during a missile attack in January this year when a number of windows were broken.
ICOMOS Ukraine said the Derzhprom, or State Industry Building, is “the world’s first state-level administrative building designed in modernist forms.”
Kharkiv, the main city of the northeast region of the same name, is less than 30 kilometers from the Russian border and is a regular target of strikes.
