Kherson region opens 75 cases over shelling of religious sites

St. Catherine’s Cathedral in Kherson after shelling on December 20, 2024. Photo: Kherson Eparchy press service

Law enforcement agencies in the Kherson region are investigating 75 criminal cases involving the shelling of religious buildings by Russian forces. Oleksiy Butenko, head of the department for combating crimes committed during armed conflict at the Kherson Regional Prosecutor’s Office, spoke about the investigations in an interview with the Horod Sontsia local outlet.

According to Butenko, 39 of the cases concern attacks on churches in Kherson, while another 36 involve religious sites in communities across the region. Pretrial investigations remain underway in all of the cases.

Butenko said prosecutors are separately documenting damage to religious buildings designated as cultural heritage sites. They are currently investigating 28 criminal cases involving damage to 13 such monuments.

Asked by a journalist whether UOC churches may have been spared Russian strikes, Butenko said the authorities do not keep “separate records based on confessional affiliation.”

Notably, however, the interview was illustrated mainly with images of destroyed churches belonging to the Ukrainian Orthodox Church.

As the UOJ reported, a UOC church in the Kherson Eparchy was destroyed in Russian shelling.

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