Terrible scenes here as the majestic Kyiv Pechersk Lavra- the Monastery of the Caves - burns, deliberately struck by missiles sent by Russia under Putin who presents himself as the leader of a Christian Civilisation and Russian World. The attack is a sign of desperation - a nihilistic attempt to destroy Ukraine's own history culture and religion, the ugly rage that if Russia cannot have it then nor can Ukraine. The Caves are older than Russia, much older since Russia was in part invented by Peter the Great but even a century older than the earliest foundation of Moscow as a minor fortress. Indeed it is not just ironic but revealing that the founder of Moscow itself, the Rurikid Prince Yuri I Vladimirovich known as Yuri the Long-Armed, Dolgorukiy, is buried there. Founded when Russia did not exist, when Moscow was a forest, it was initially ruled by the fissiparous Rurikid princes of Kievan Rus and built by priests from Mount Athos around the 1050s. It was sacked several times by Mongol invaders and the Mongol rulers of Russia the Genghizid khans of the Golden Horde - echoes of today - and later ruled by a succession of realms including the huge Grand Duchy of Lithuania.... And then swallwed into the Principality of Muscovy by Peter the Great's father Alexei. In 1787, when Catherine the Great progressed down towards the newly conquered Crimea, she rendez-voused with her co-ruler Prince Potemkin in Kyiv. He was half sybarite half coenobite and while he was waiting for her, he moved into the Caves and lived there for months, holding court for ambassadors and adventuresses - in between spasms of prayer and scourging. Putin identifies with Catherine and Potemkin who conquered Crimea and south Ukraine and he stole the body of Potemkin during this war. But Potemkin loved the Lavra... As the Red Army retreated in 1941, the Soviets blew up parts of the Lavra and it was rebuilt after the war.... Now its destruction is heartbreaking - it semaphores the barbarism and bankruptcy and nihilism of the Russian war - it may just mark a new low in a bloodcurdled spiral of brutality that is this unnecessary imperial conflict but one can only hope that the vandal madness of this attack marks another stage in the road to the realization that Putin's war has failed .... thetimes.com/world/russia-uk…