On February 16, during the next exchange of prisoners, the Ukrainian side handed over to the Russian Federation a priest from the Yarovaya village of the Horlivka diocese of the UOC. Andriy Yusov, representative of the Main Intelligence Directorate of the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine, announced this on the air of the telethon.

According to him, the exchange with the participation of the priest of the UOC was requested by the Russian side, to which Ukraine and the archpriest himself agreed.

The Main Intelligence Directorate said that Archpriest of the UOC Mykola Zirka was sentenced to 7 years for “helping the occupiers, leaking various information to them and helping to hold so-called pseudo-referendums.”

At the same time, in the social networks of the village of Yarovaya, residents note that during the occupation, the priest only took out the wounded and helped the locals with humanitarian aid.