The Russian leadership is trying to use false narratives about the persecution of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate, accusing the Ukrainian authorities of suppressing religious freedoms to morally justify refusing to negotiate with Kyiv.
This is stated in the report of the Institute for the Study of War (ISW), Interfax-Ukraine reports.
It notes that Russia's Permanent Representative to the UN Security Council, Vasily Nebenzia, said in his address that the Ukrainian government is allegedly an "authoritarian dictatorship" that wants to "destroy the canonical Church in Ukraine — the UOC-MP."
Nebenzia argued that such an "authoritarian dictatorship" constituted a serious obstacle to peace talks and requested a special meeting of the UN Security Council to discuss alleged state persecution of the UOC-MP.
Analysts are convinced that Russian officials deliberately distort Ukraine's efforts to identify Kremlin agents in the structure of the UOC-MP as persecution of the Church. They specify that the Ukrainian authorities do not restrict religious freedom in the country, and Ukraine is not an existential threat to the Russian Federation, as Nebenzia also stated.