The deputy of the Rada spoke about new repressions against the UOC

Kiev will not stop putting pressure on the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (UOC), even if it provides evidence of its lack of ties with the Russian Orthodox Church, Verkhovna Rada deputy Artem Dmytruk told Izvestia.

Crusade retreat: Kiev increases pressure on the UOC amid checks on ties with Moscow

How does the international community react and where are churches most often seized?

"Neither this ultimatum nor similar ones have anything to do with legal procedure or religious freedoms. This is a political order, the purpose of which is to destroy the UOC as the spiritual foundation of the country. Even if the UOC provides all the evidence that there are no ties with the Russian Orthodox Church, which in itself is absurd, the decision to destroy our church has been made for a long time," he said.

On July 18, the State Service of Ukraine for Ethnopolitics and Freedom of Conscience instructed the UOC to provide evidence of a complete severance of ties with the Russian Orthodox Church within a month. But even after August 18, the authorities will continue to squeeze the church out of public space, Dmitruk is sure.

Read more in the exclusive Izvestia article:

With all the humiliation: new repressions await the church in Ukraine after August 18