The head of the Humanitarian and Information Policy Committee, Nikita Poturaev, said in a commentary for RBC-Ukraine that draft law 8371 cannot be interpreted as exactly “restricting the activities” of the UOC MPs.

“To say that the main purpose of the bill is to restrict the activities of the UOC-MP is categorically impossible. This was not its goal from the beginning, and this is not its goal now. On the contrary, we need to understand that now it is very important for us that in all possible ways to the West, our Western partners and allies was a concrete narrative that we have not adopted a law regarding any one church or religious organization, we have adopted a law that allows us, after all, in the third year of a full-scale invasion and in the eleventh year of the war to effectively combat hostile propaganda that is spread through religious organizations”, – Poturaev said.

The nardeputy added that a religious organization of Ukraine “has no right to be affiliated and be respectively in hierarchical ties of subordination with those religious organizations that have governing centers in the aggressor state. This is what this bill is about.”

“Yes, the bill contains a political condemnation of the ROC. And not only political condemnation, but also contains a declaration that Ukraine bans the ROC. But this does not mean that automatically bans the UOC, as the UOC tells about itself that it is not the ROC”, – said the MP.

We shall remind you that earlier we reported that the Verkhovna Rada Committee on Humanitarian and Information Policy had recommend to parliament to adopt in the second reading and in general the bill No. 8371, aimed at banning the activities of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church.