Vladimir Putin, self-appointed defender of Christian civilization, just set fire to an 11th-century Orthodox cathedral that predates the Magna Carta. The Dormition Cathedral in Ukraine, a UNESCO World Heritage site and a monument central to Russian Orthodox heritage itself, is the latest entry in what the New York Post reports is now a list of more than 1,700 religious and cultural sites targeted since Russia's invasion began. Let that number sit with you for a second.
The Cathedral Putin Bombed Was Part of His Own Religion's History
The Dormition Cathedral is not some abstract symbol. It is a living, breathing piece of Orthodox Christian history that has stood for roughly a thousand years. The head of the Orthodox Church of Ukraine called the attack a Russian crime, per the New York Post, against, quote, "humanity, against history, against Christianity." That condemnation did not come from a Western think tank or a NATO spokesperson. It came from the leader of the very faith Putin claims to be protecting.
This is the part that should make your jaw drop. Putin has spent years positioning himself as a bulwark of traditional Christian values against the godless liberal West. He has used the Russian Orthodox Church as a prop, a backdrop, a branding exercise. And then he sent missiles into a cathedral his own religious tradition built. The cognitive dissonance required to hold those two things simultaneously is genuinely staggering.
1,700 Sites Is Not Collateral Damage, It Is a Pattern
Collateral damage is one building. Maybe two. It is not 1,700. According to the New York Post's reporting, Russia has systematically targeted museums, churches, and libraries across Ukraine at a scale that obliterates any serious argument about accidents or military necessity.
The list is grim and specific. The Korolenko Kharkiv State Scientific Library, one of the largest libraries in Europe, was almost completely destroyed by Russian shelling. The Cathedral of the Transfiguration in Odessa, a neoclassicist landmark, took a major hit in 2023. The Mariupol Drama Theater was bombed while civilians were sheltering inside it, and then Putin's forces went ahead and leveled nearly the entire surrounding historic district. These are not mistakes. They are choices.
The 1954 Hague Convention, written specifically in the shadow of World War II, explicitly protects cultural heritage sites during armed conflict. Russia is a signatory. What is happening in Ukraine is not legally ambiguous. It is, by the plain text of international law, a war crime, and it has been happening at industrial scale.
Worse Than the Nazis, and That Is Not Hyperbole
The New York Post makes a comparison that sounds inflammatory until you look at the specifics. The Nazis, for all their monstrous crimes, were largely interested in looting European art and culture. They stole it. They wanted it. Putin's forces, by contrast, are just destroying it. There is no acquisition strategy here, no attempt to seize these objects for some imagined greater Russian empire. There is just fire and rubble.
Looting at least implies a kind of twisted desire for the thing you are taking. What Russia is doing to Ukrainian libraries, cathedrals, and cultural institutions suggests something closer to pure erasure. The goal appears to be that these things should not exist at all. That is a particular kind of barbarism that sits in its own category.
What Happens as the War Turns Against Russia
Here is where this gets darker. Ukraine has reportedly been reversing Russian territorial gains, and the pressure on Russia's economy has been growing, according to the New York Post. A Putin on the back foot is not a Putin who is going to suddenly discover restraint.
The concern, and it is a serious one, is that as the military situation deteriorates for Russia, the attacks on cultural sites could intensify. A regime that bombs a thousand-year-old cathedral when it thinks it is winning will not become more careful about heritage preservation when it feels cornered. If anything, the destruction could accelerate as a form of spite. Ukraine has already lost an irreplaceable slice of human civilization. The question now is how much more gets taken before this ends.
The Dingo Take
Let's be direct about what this is. Vladimir Putin has destroyed more than 1,700 cultural heritage sites, torched a UNESCO World Heritage cathedral that his own religious tradition built, bombed civilians sheltering in a theater, and leveled a library that contained centuries of human knowledge. He has done all of this while claiming to defend Christian civilization. The entire premise of his self-image is now ash, quite literally, and the people still buying it deserve to have that explained to them very slowly.
The 1954 Hague Convention exists because the world looked at what happened to European culture during World War II and said never again. It wrote that promise down. Russia signed it. And then Russia ignored it at a scale that dwarfs almost anything in recent memory. Over 1,700 sites is not a war crime. It is a war crimes spree. It is a campaign. At some point the international community has to grapple with the fact that calling something a war crime and doing absolutely nothing about it is its own form of complicity.
Ukraine is not just fighting for its borders. It is fighting for its libraries, its cathedrals, its theaters, its history. Every week that goes by without serious accountability for what Russia is doing to cultural heritage is another week where the message being sent is that this kind of destruction carries no real cost. That is a message the rest of the world should be very uncomfortable sending.
