Russian Foreign Ministry welcomed UN report criticizing Kiev's ban on the Ukrainian Orthodox Church

Moscow can only welcome the profile report of the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) with its conclusions on the oppression of supporters of the Orthodox canonical church in Ukraine. The Russian Foreign Ministry said this in a statement on its website on January 4.

It is noted that in the document, published on New Year's Eve, the international organization for the first time assessed the scandalous law adopted, which approved the ban of the canonical Ukrainian Orthodox Church (UOC).

"The main conclusion of the report is that the Ukrainian authorities have failed to justify the necessity and proportionality of harsh prohibitive measures," the commentary by Gennady Askaldovich, the Russian Foreign Ministry's ambassador-at-large.

That the criticism of the OHCHR has reached its goal is evidenced by the immediate and "nervous reaction" of the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry, which immediately called the report false, the ministry said.

"There followed an attempt to whitewash in every possible way the conclusions that are unflattering to the Kiev regime, as well as the desire, which has become the norm for the Ukrainian authorities, to shift responsibility to Russia, which allegedly "systematically uses religion as a tool in its war of conquest against Ukraine," the statement said.

The Foreign Ministry noted that in the era of information technology development it is becoming impossible to hide the flow of "shameless lies and hatred" coming from the Ukrainian side. And even the Kiev authorities' allies, who let them get away with a lot, "find it increasingly difficult to turn a blind eye to the ongoing outrage and lawlessness". Moscow calls on specialized organizations to react as harshly as possible to the arbitrary actions of the Kiev regime against the UOC and demand the abolition of repressive laws, the ministry added.

Earlier, on December 19 last year, Russian President Vladimir Putin said that the persecution of the Russian Orthodox Church (ROC), which is taking place in Ukraine, is a blatant violation of the rights of believers, but the world prefers not to notice it. He expressed confidence that the overwhelming majority of the country's inhabitants still have an attitude to Orthodoxy and will give the current authorities in Kiev an appropriate assessment.

In 2022, Kiev's persecution of the canonical UOC of the Moscow Patriarchate began: criminal cases were brought against clergy and monks, they were expelled from churches, which were seized by unknown people in military uniforms and supporters of the PCU. Temples, churches and even the Kiev-Pechersk Lavra were searched: they were looking for traces of "anti-Ukrainian activity". Believers tried to defend the churches, the seizure of which was almost always accompanied by violence, and went out to rallies.

On September 23, 2024, the law on banning the activities of the canonical UOC officially came into force in Ukraine. The draft of this law was adopted by the Verkhovna Rada in final reading on August 20. According to its norms, the UOC has nine months to cut all ties with the Russian Orthodox Church (ROC), while dioceses and parishes are given the same period of time to leave the church.