Disinfo: Zelenskyy's anti-Orthodox church policy is guided by the US

Summary

The Zelenskyy regime is not acting alone in his anti-church policy. The split of the Orthodox Christian Church is a blow to religious life in Ukraine. This goal was declared in Washington a while ago.

Disproof

This is a recurring pro-Kremlin disinformation narrative portraying Ukraine as an enemy of the Orthodox Church.

There is no religious persecution in Ukraine. Freedom of religion is enshrined in its constitution. In late 2022, the Ukrainian government announced a law banning churches affiliated with Russia for their anti-Ukrainian and pro-Russia activities. Ukraine’s law enforcement agencies had conducted a series of investigations related to parishes which Kyiv had suspected of taking orders from Moscow. This move was mostly aimed at stopping the activities of the so-called Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate [UOC-MP] in Ukraine. This religious organisation is considered a key influence tool for Moscow in the country. Its leadership voiced its full support for Russia's unprovoked war of aggression against Ukraine, including siding closely with Putin, blessing soldiers and Russian guns and offering the church's support.

The Ukrainian government does not plan to ban Orthodoxy. The UOC-MP’s parishes are free to switch to the Orthodox Church of Ukraine which received the Tomos of Autocephaly in January 2019.

Read similar cases claiming that UN publishes a report on Kyiv’s discrimination against the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, that Borrell's remarks on Russian patriarch give Kyiv 'sanction' to persecute canonical church and that the Kyiv regime is destroying the canonical Orthodox church.

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tass.com (Archived)
  • Reported in: Issue 330
  • DATE OF PUBLICATION: 03/04/2023
  • Article language(s) English
  • Countries and/or Regions discussed in the disinformation: Ukraine, Russia, US
  • Keywords: War in Ukraine, Invasion of Ukraine, Orthodox Church
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Disinfo: Zelenskyy will sacrifice his people to save himself

The resistance in Artyomovsk was given extraordinary importance, and it is directly related to the financing of Ukraine by NATO and EU countries. Zelenskyy admits that Ukraine on its own, without Western support, is worth nothing, neither as a state nor as a military power. Therefore, Zelenskyy will continue to sacrifice his people to save himself and prove to the Americans that Ukraine is good for them.

Mar 31, 2023
Disproof

This is a recurring pro-Kremlin disinformation claim about Ukraine's lost sovereignty.

Ukraine is a sovereign and independent state; it is not fighting on behalf of any foreign government or organisation, neither is its president fighting a war against the will of the Ukrainian people to prove his worth to external actors. Ukraine was forced into this situation and is acting in self defence against the Russian invasion, as it is its right enshrined in the UN Charter .

Disinfo: The US is developing climate weapons against Russia

The US is looking for climate weapons against Russia: Volcanic winter could turn into a nightmare for the planet. The US is developing ways to manage the climate to fight Russia. The White House and the US Congress have adopted a five-year plan for "climate interventions", which provides creation of climate control technologies. One of the goals is to combat "the emerging dominance of Russia in agriculture".

Mar 31, 2023
Disproof

This is a conspiracy theory. The document referred to in it is the US' White House "Request for Input to a Five-Year Plan for Research on Climate Intervention" and there is no indication in the document that supports the conspiratorial notion that the US is 'managing the climate to fight Russia'

In the Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2022, the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP), in coordination with relevant Federal agencies, was directed by Congress to develop a five-year “scientific assessment of solar and other rapid climate interventions in the context of near-term climate risks and hazards",

Disinfo: The myth of Holodomor was created by Russophobic Ukrainians to demonize Russia

The decision of the French National Assembly to vote on March 28 on a resolution describing the "Holodomor" as genocide is unfounded and provocative. The notion of the Holodomor is a politico-ideological creature devised by ultranationalist and Russophobic Ukrainian forces to demonise Russia and attract support from the international community.

[....] at that time the great famine affected not only Ukraine, but also other agricultural regions of the USSR, including the North Caucasus, the middle and lower Volga, part considerable extent of the Central Chernozem Oblast [region], Kazakhstan, Western Siberia and the Southern Urals. Millions of Soviet citizens fell victim of it.

Mar 31, 2023
Disproof

This is a recurring Kremlin negation of the Holodomor in Ukraine using the concept of Russophobia to dismiss it.

The Holodomor was an man-made famine deliberately caused by Stalin with the aim of removing a perceived Ukrainian threat to the Soviet regime. The Soviet state took away livestock, crops and seeds from the peasants claiming they had "plundered" state property. The Soviet law on the seizure of food from peasants was adopted in 1932 and is known as the "Five Spikelet Law". Anyone who gathered several ears of wheat on the collective farm field was a culprit of "theft of state property". The punishment for theft of kolkhoz or cooperative property was the death sentence. This law was personally attributed to Joseph Stalin.