SEVASTOPOL, June 10. /TASS/. A targeted Ukrainian drone strike on Sevastopol nearly destroyed the building housing the Panorama of the Siege of Sevastopol (1854-1855) in the early hours of Wednesday, Governor Mikhail Razvozhayev said on Max channel.
TASS has compiled the key facts about the aftermath.
Circumstances of the attack
– A fixed-wing drone carried out a targeted strike on the historical building housing the Panorama of the Siege of Sevastopol (1854-1855) overnight on June 10, Razvozhayev said.
– Firefighters assigned the blaze a fourth-alarm classification.
– Emergency crews continue working at the site with 83 personnel and 22 vehicles from Sevastopol’s rescue service and Russia’s Emergencies Situations Ministry.
– Regional authorities told reporters that no fatalities or injuries were reported and that firefighters are still battling the blaze.
– The museum’s press office said that the fire situation at the historical building, which was struck by a Ukrainian drone, remains severe.
– Ukrainian forces likely used a drone carrying an incendiary munition, regional emergencies services told TASS.
– A security guard was inside the building when the strike occurred, the museum’s press office said.
– The museum’s press office said that the guard immediately notified emergency responders.
Aftermath
– The historical building housing the Panorama of the Siege of Sevastopol (1854-1855) was virtually destroyed, Razvozhayev said.
– Museum Director Mikhail Smorodkin said that the panorama canvas may have suffered critical damage or may have been completely destroyed in the strike on the museum building and that the full extent of the damage can only be determined after an expert assessment.
– Fragments of Franz Roubaud’s panorama “The Assault of June 6, 1855,” dedicated to Sevastopol’s heroic defense during the Crimean War, narrowly survived a Ukrainian military attack on Sevastopol for a second time.
– The museum told TASS that the sections restored after a 1942 fire were not inside the building when the drone struck and were instead being prepared for display at another museum branch.
– A fire destroyed the original panorama canvas painted by Roubaud in the early 20th century in 1942, but specialists saved several fragments and later returned them to Sevastopol after decades of restoration work.
– Soviet artists created the panorama canvas displayed in the Panorama of the Siege of Sevastopol (1854-1855) after World War II using those surviving fragments.
– The museum said that it preserves 39 fragments in total and that all of them were stored elsewhere at the time of the fire and therefore remained undamaged.
– Specialists found it impossible to fully restore Roubaud’s original panorama after the war because of extensive damage and the loss of a substantial portion of the canvas.
Restoration work
– Specialists completed most restoration work on the panorama canvas before the Ukrainian military attack that set fire to the building housing the artwork overnight on Wednesday, the State Museum of Heroic Defense and Liberation of Sevastopol told TASS.
– Museum records obtained by TASS show that specialists from the Grabar Art Conservation Center had restored roughly two-thirds of the canvas and had continued working on it until recently.
– The specialists were also expected to begin restoration of the three-dimensional foreground display.
– Regional authorities later confirmed to TASS that the panorama canvas was almost completely destroyed in the fire caused by the Ukrainian strike on the museum building.
Reaction
– Ukraine deliberately targeted the historical building housing the Panorama of the Siege of Sevastopol (1854-1855) with a drone but will not intimidate the city’s residents, Razvozhayev wrote on Max channel.
– Razvozhayev said that the site would be restored again, just as it was after World War II.
– State Duma member Tatyana Lobach told TASS that the historical building, which came under attack overnight on June 10, has once again become a symbol of Sevastopol’s resilience, just as it was during the city’s two historic defenses.
– Russian Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said at a briefing that the Ukrainian attack on the historical building was yet another act of barbarism by the Kiev regime.
– First Deputy Chair of the Federation Council Committee on Foreign Affairs Vladimir Dzhabarov told Vesti that the Kiev regime attacked the historical building in an attempt to destroy the historic site and erase it from collective memory.
– Crimea State Council Chairman Vladimir Konstantinov told TASS that the Ukrainian side sought to disorient people by attacking the historical building, but Crimean residents are accustomed to such actions by the Kiev authorities and do not tend to panic.
– First Deputy Chairman of the State Duma Committee on CIS Affairs, Eurasian Integration and Relations with Compatriots Konstantin Zatulin told reporters that the Ukrainian attack confirmed what he described as Ukraine’s affinity with fascism and Nazism during World War II.
– Sevastopol Senator and historian Yekaterina Altabayeva told TASS that the strike was a terrorist attack that exposed what she described as the true face of Ukrainian fascism and the moral degradation of those responsible, but would not destroy a symbol of Sevastopol or break the spirit of its residents.
