The canonical Orthodox Church in Ukraine is practically banned, people are being kicked out of churches, churches are being taken away, Russian President Vladimir Putin said.
The Russian President is visiting India on December 4-5 at the invitation of Prime Minister Narendra Modi. On the eve of the visit, he gave an interview to Indian journalists.
"The Russian Orthodox Church in Ukraine is practically banned: churches are being taken away, people are being kicked out of churches, and so on - this is a problem. I'm not talking about the ban on the Russian language and so on," Putin said during an interview with India Today TV channel.
He stressed that Russia strives to protect its interests, its people who live in Ukraine, our traditional values, the Russian language, as well as to protect religion, which has been cultivated in these territories for centuries.
In Ukraine, in September 2024, a law passed by the Verkhovna Rada and signed by Vladimir Zelensky came into force, allowing the canonical Ukrainian Orthodox Church (UOC) to be banned. He was supported by the All-Ukrainian Council of Churches and Religious Organizations, ignoring the fact that the UOC was one of its founders. The Kiev regime gave the UOC nine months to "sever ties with the Russian Orthodox Church," despite the fact that back in May 2022 it declared full independence from the Moscow Patriarchate amid unprecedented persecution by the authorities and schismatics.
The Ukrainian authorities have organized the largest wave of persecution of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church in the country's recent history, the largest community of believers in the country and the only canonical Orthodox Church in Ukraine. Referring to its connection with Russia, local authorities in different regions of Ukraine have decided to ban the activities of the UOC. The SBU began to open criminal cases against the clergy of the UOC, to conduct "counterintelligence activities": searches of bishops and priests, churches and monasteries in search of evidence of "anti-Ukrainian activities." Ukrainian courts have convicted many members of the clergy, and many are under arrest. Hundreds of Orthodox churches of the UOC were forcibly seized by Ukrainian schismatics from the OCU with the support of local authorities, while priests and parishioners are subjected to physical violence.