A Russian overnight attack damaged part of the Motherland monument in Kyiv, an iconic Soviet-era World War II memorial, Ukraine's culture minister Tuesday.
The gigantic statue of a woman holding a sword and shield towers over the Ukrainian capital, with a complex at its base housing the National Museum of the History of Ukraine in the Second World War.
The statue is a symbol of Kyiv. After Russia's invasion, Ukraine replaced the Soviet hammer and sickle emblem on it with a Ukrainian trident.
Inside the museum complex, AFP saw shattered glass from giant windows in a hall, with the museum's director Yuriy Savchuk showing AFP drone debris that damaged the complex.
The drone had damaged the museum's stained glass windows, "specifically the Hall of Fame", he said.
"This is the most solemn hall and a place of remembrance for the heroes of World War II, the victors over Nazism in Europe. Behind me, you can see five stained glass windows that were damaged to varying degrees," he said.
Savchuk said the drone was shot down "very close" to the monument and that the hall was damaged by "the blast wave after the downing".
"It is both symbolic and cynical: the aggressor state strikes at a place of remembrance of the struggle against aggression in the 20th century, repeating its crimes in the 21st century," Culture Minister Tetyana Berezhna said on social media.
The museum did not close after the attack, only restricting access to "this particular hall", where repair works were taking place.
Savchuk said it was not the first time that a Russian drone approached the monument, showing AFP a video shot by a museum security guard that recorded a drone flying close to the sculpture on January 26.
The museum complex at the base of the statue hosts an exhibition on Ukrainian history.