On Wednesday evening, Russia condemned the “political” decision in the case of adding the historic center of the Ukrainian city of Odesa, located on the shores of the Black Sea, to the list of UNESCO’s World Heritage under threat, reports AFP.

“A group of countries belonging to the ‘collective West’, with the clear help of the UNESCO Secretariat, which has lost its impartiality, hastily made a political decision,” criticized the Russian Foreign Ministry in a statement.

On Wednesday, UNESCO approved the inclusion of the historic city center of Odesa on the list of World Heritage in Danger, thus receiving a special status to protect it from damage that could be caused by a Russian invasion. The same list also includes the Rachid Karami International Fair in Lebanon, designed by Brazilian architect Oscar Niemeyer, and the main sights of the ancient kingdom of Saba in Yemen.

The decision was taken by UNESCO’s World Heritage Committee, which met in Paris for an extraordinary session to consider three nominations under an emergency procedure that applies to sites of exceptional interest deemed to be in danger.