The West’s darling of democracy, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy informed Ukrainians in his daily television address on Dec. 1 that his regime will now ban the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, subject its clergy to sanctions, and step up policing of religious activities generally in Ukraine. The UOC had officially broken its ties to the Moscow Patriarchate last May, but the UOC is being charged with threatening “Ukraine’s spiritual independence” by alleged ties to Russia.
All opposition media and political parties had already been prohibited and persecuted under the same justification. Now the Ukrainian state is taking over religious activities.
Zelenskyy announced that the National Security and Defense Council (NSDC) has “instructed” the government to submit “a draft law making it impossible for religious organizations affiliated with centers of influence in the Russian Federation to operate in Ukraine.” The capabilities and status of the “State Service on Ethnopolitics and Freedom of Conscience” will be beefed up to “protect the rights and legitimate interests of the Ukrainians and the state.” National security agencies “must intensify measures to identify and counter subversive activities of Russian special services in the religious environment of Ukraine.” That requires, he specified, that “personal sanctions” be applied against those found “guilty.”
“We will ensure, in particular, spiritual independence. We will never allow anyone to build an empire inside the Ukrainian soul,” Zelenskyy proclaimed. (https://www.president.gov.ua/en/news/mi-garantuyemo-ukrayini-duhovnu-nezalezhnist-zvernennya-prez-79577 )
The Center for Countering Disinformation (CCD), an agency of the NSDC, denounced any claim that this assault threatens religious freedom as “Russian propaganda.” In a Dec. 2 Telegram post, it asserted that “the authorities of Ukraine do not forbid being Christians, as the propaganda says, to give up your religious views or traditions, but Ukraine must be cleansed of everything russian and cleanse all areas of life where russia has penetrated” (sic spelling). (https://t.me/TheCenterforCounteringDisinfo/1239 )
This is the same fascist concept of ethnic “cleansing” expressed by NSDC Secretary Oleksiy Danilov in his speech, the same day as Zelenskyy’s, to a powwow of Ukraine’s foreign backers at the Kyiv Security Forum, demanding that Russia “be destroyed so that they cease to exist as a country within the limits in which they exist,” labeling all Russians “barbarians,” and ranting to “Muscovy” that “you are not at all worthy of anyone in the world communicating with you.”
Zelenskyy’s speech made official the attack on the church already under way. The Security Service of Ukraine (SBU), notoriously linked with the Myrotvorets assassination operation and operating under the NSDC, raided several UOC churches and monasteries on Nov. 22. They raided others in three regions on Dec. 2. A source in the Office of the Presidency told the Ukrainian News Agency the same day that sanctions have been imposed on 14 UOC representatives and a former member of the Verkhovna Rada (the parliament), Vadim Novinsky. (No reasons for the sanctions were given.)
Zelenskyy’s Dec. 2 remarks to the Hryhorii Skovoroda University imply that “cleansing” of scientific circles and universities may soon follow. He told the students and teachers that he “believes it is necessary to develop Ukrainian universities and science, as this is an informational warfare. This also applies to the country’s spiritual sphere,” Ukrinform reported. (https://ukranews.com/en/news/899367-nsdc-imposes-sanctions-against-kyiv-pechersk-lavra-abbot-pavlo-14-representatives-of-uoc-mp-and-ex )
