About 530 religious buildings in Ukraine have been damaged as a result of Russian shelling. Approximately half of all recorded cases are temples of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church. This was stated by religious scholar, head of the project “Religion in Fire” Ruslan Khalikov during a press conference at the Media Center Ukraine-Ukrainform on January 24, 2024, reports the Information and Education Department of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church with reference to the website ukrinform.ua.

“As of today, we have counted approximately 530 religious buildings that have come under fire. As part of our project, we are monitoring this. And several of them have come under fire several times each”, – Khalikov said.

The expert added that the greatest number of damaged structures are in regions where fighting is taking place.

According to Khalikov, there are more than 100 in Donetsk region, more than 80 in Kyiv region, more than 60 in Luhansk and Kharkiv regions, more than 55 in Kherson region and more than 30 in Zaporizhzhya region. In addition, dozens of religious buildings were damaged in Sumy, Chernihiv, Mykolaiv and Dnipropetrovsk regions.

“Approximately half of all recorded cases of damage to religious buildings are temples of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church”, – he said.