Political scientist Ruslan Bortnik believes that the likelihood of anti-church bills and a complete ban on the activities of the UOC is quite high. This was reported by the Information and Education Department of the UOC with a link to a video from the expert’s YouTube channel.
In addition, Bortnik noted that the main beneficiaries in this situation are internal and external opponents of the authorities.
“Firstly, this is the team of ex-president Petro Poroshenko, since it was she who began the process of creating a sovereign church and the fight against the UOC. And she will say that “it is thanks to us that we managed to destroy the dominant religious structure in Ukraine, associated with Russia.” And create a large, national, albeit partially recognized church,” the expert said.
“But the ROC will also use it. The Russian Orthodox Church will declare the persecution of Orthodoxy, attributing the character of a holy war for the Orthodox faith to the war against Ukraine. For the Kremlin, this will be another argument for promoting a new wave of mobilization,” he added.
In addition, according to the political scientist, with church issues, the authorities want to divert attention in the information space from other topics: corruption scandals, issues related to the outcome of the war.
