Pro-Russian accounts share fake proof that Ukraine is behind the burning of Kyiv cathedral

The Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra, an Orthodox monastic complex listed as a Unesco World Heritage site, was hit by a strike during the night of June 14 to 15. The strike was carried out by a Russian drone, according to the international community and Ukrainian authorities. French President Emmanuel Macron called the bombing of this sacred religious site "an attack against [our] universal heritage” on X.

Images published by French news agency AFP show the near-destruction of the Dormition Cathedral, one of the most sacred buildings within the complex. The fire caused by the strike tore through the cathedral's roof and façade. 

But on X, pro-Russian social media users have been claiming that Russia isn't to blame for the strike. They, along with the Russian Minister of Foreign Affairs, say that Ukraine was behind it. 

Was it all an elaborate plan by Ukraine? 

Pro-Russian social media users have claimed in a number of X posts (including here and here) that Ukraine had staged the bombing of the cathedral – posts that have garnered more than 250,000 views since June 15. They say that the photos and videos showing the building on fire that have been shared by international media outlets are just part of the ruse. 

"Even though filming bombings is banned in Ukraine,” photographers equipped with “professional material” were conveniently positioned on the rooftops facing the cathedral ahead of the strike, alleged one social media user, who shared two images that supposedly show photographers preparing to photograph the strike. 

The first image shows two men setting up a tripod on a rooftop with a view looking down on the cathedral in broad daylight. The second image shows a person taking a photo of the cathedral engulfed in flames against the night sky.   These two images of journalists in front of the Dormition Cathedral were generated by AI.

These images show, according to another social media user, that "Ukrainian journalists knew exactly where it would land". 

It turns out, however, that these images are both fake. SynthID, Chat GPT's tool for identifying artificially generated images, shows that the images have a watermark indicating that they were produced by Chat GPT's AI image generator.  We ran the two images of journalists photographing Dormition Cathedral through SynthID, which revealed that they were generated by artificial intelligence.

Moreover, the cathedral that appears in the generated image looks different from the real building. The real cathedral has a brown roof, as shown in these images taken before and after the fire. But the cathedral that appears in the AI-generated image has a green roof.  At left, we've zoomed in on the AI-generated photo to show the green roof of the cathedral. At right is a real image of the Dormition Cathedral, with its brown roof.

The author of the AI-generated image may have been confused about which cathedral they were using as a model. The AI-generated image actually looks more like another Kyiv cathedral – the Saint-Sophia Cathedral – which does have a green roof.

Kyiv blames the strike on a Russian drone

In a statement shared on June 15, the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs also blamed Ukraine for the strike on Dormition Cathedral.

“The Kyiv Pechersk Lavra complex was struck by a missile launched by a US-made Patriot air defence system. One possible reason for the malfunction of the system is that Western countries had supplied the Kyiv regime with missiles whose service life had expired.”

The ministry, however, presented no proof or information that can be independently verified to back up this declaration. 

The Ukrainian authorities, however, as well as the SBU, the Ukrainian security services, say that Russia is responsible. The SBU reported that a Russian Geran-2 kamikaze drone bombed the Dormition Cathedral. The service shared images of drone debris that they said were found amongst the ruins of the cathedral. 

The SBU shared one photo of an MD-550 motor, which is used in Geran-2 drones. In this photo, you can see the four-cylinder structure as well as the placement of the spark plugs, which reflect the design of an MD-550 motor. The top left image shows the photo published by the SBU on June 15, 2026, that supposedly shows an MD-550 motor from a Geran-2 drone found amidst the ruins of the cathedral. The images at the bottom and on the top right are photos of an MD-550 motor taken in 2022 and 2023.

The SBU also published an image of the debris from a drone featuring a serial number starting with the letters "ALB". Independent Russian investigative media outlet The Insider reported that drones with these three letters were likely manufactured in the Alabuga factory in Tatarstan, Russia, which manufactures drones for the Russian army. This is the photo said to show Geran-2 drone debris found on the site of the Dormition Cathedral. The image was posted online on June 15, 2026.

While the evidence shared by the Ukrainian authorities does seem to indicate that the strike on the cathedral was carried out by a Russian drone, it isn't possible to independently verify it.

This article has been translated from the original in French by Brenna Daldorph.