Kyiv: Saint-Sophia Cathedral and Related Monastic Buildings, Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra

According to UNESCO, the principality of Kyiv was formed in the 11th century in a region evangelised after the baptism of Vladimir in 988. St Sophia's Cathedral was built in the early 11th century under Grand Prince Yaroslav the Wise by local builders and Byzantine masters, to rival Hagia Sophia in Constantinople. Its founding year is disputed, with 1011 and 1037 among the dates proposed. About 260 square metres of 11th-century mosaics and about 3,000 square metres of frescoes survive, and the Virgin Orans in the central apse is about 6 m tall.

The Pechersk Lavra began when Anthony, a monk from Liubech, settled in a cave on a hill above the Dnipro; later the abbot Theodosius started work on the Dormition Cathedral. Both ensembles took their present look in the 17th and 18th centuries, the heyday of the Ukrainian Baroque. A renovation of St Sophia in 1690 to 1707 added four domes, and the Lavra's Great Bell Tower, 96.5 m tall, went up in 1731 to 1745.

The Dormition Cathedral was blown up on 3 November 1941 and almost entirely destroyed; it was rebuilt in late 18th-century Baroque forms and reopened in 2000. The Lavra became a state reserve in 1926 and St Sophia in 1934, and both were inscribed as a World Heritage site in 1990. The property was placed on the List of World Heritage in Danger in 2023, and on 14 June 2026 a drone attack caused heavy damage to the Lavra, destroying much of a roof, damaging the main dome and starting fires inside the Dormition Cathedral.