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Court sets bail for the UOC-MP cleric who orchestrated provocations at Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra

17 February, 16:15

The Solomiansky District Court of Kyiv set bail at over 121 thousand hryvnias for the Hierodeacon of the UOC-MP Pavlo Muzichuk, who was charged with justifying Russian aggression on February 9.

This was reported by the TG-channel Graty.

According to the investigation, the monk Pavlo, who lives in the Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra monastery, sent messages in correspondence with interlocutors in Telegram, in which he justified Russian aggression and glorified Russian military personnel. In particular, linguistic expertise interpreted his phrases as "Russians will win anyway" and "Lviv is a Russian city."

The monk himself and his lawyers stated that the suspicion was unfounded. They requested that the linguistic expertise be recognized as inadmissible evidence because the experts used Russian books for research.

During the hearing, the monk did not comment on the content of the messages mentioned in the suspicion.

After preventive measures were applied to Pavlo Muzichuk, a verbal altercation broke out between supporters and opponents of the UOC-MP. The police intervened to separate the sides.

As reported by RISU, according to the investigation, the defendant is one of the closest associates of Metropolitan Pavlo (Lebid) and was involved in organizing mass provocations at the Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra in the spring of 2023.

Under the guise of "protest actions," the clergyman hoped to destabilize the socio-political situation in Kyiv as much as possible. To achieve this, he remotely coordinated his actions with the pro-Kremlin blogger Shariy, who is suspected of state treason.

In particular, as the investigation revealed, the hostile propagandist "instructed" the hierodeacon on recording and disseminating provocative videos of staged disturbances near the Lavra.

The recorded streams were immediately picked up by Russian TV channels and internet resources to spread distorted information about the internal situation in Ukraine, especially to international audiences.

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