On February 10, the Mission of the President of Ukraine in the Autonomous Republic of Crimea hosted a meeting of the Permanent Representative Olha Kuryshko with Metropolitan Klyment of Simferopol and Crimea of the OCU. The meeting was also joined by Deputy Permanent Representative Denys Chystikov.
This was reported by Voice of Crimea.
The main topics of discussion were the religious oppression of the Orthodox Church of Ukraine by the Russian occupiers and the destruction of cultural heritage sites in the temporarily occupied Crimea.
Metropolitan Klyment noted that even before the occupation, he had been building the Crimean Diocese so that it could work autonomously, without connection with mainland Ukraine. Everything changed after the full-scale invasion in 2022 when the occupation administration intensified the destruction of everything Ukrainian on the peninsula.
The meeting participants paid special attention to the destruction of cultural heritage sites by the Russian occupiers. The Prosecutor's Office of the Autonomy, which previously dealt with the issues of destroyed churches in Crimea, was joined by the Prosecutor General's Office of Ukraine, where a separate department is being formed, and the Security Service of Ukraine is being involved.
The issue of the occupiers working on the construction of the so-called “new Chersonese” occupiers was also raised during the meeting. Kuryshko called it a crime that destroys historical heritage. The Stalinist Empire-style architecture has desecrated the spirit of this place, and propaganda images with scenes from the Crimean War and World War II have turned this place into a branch of the infamous military church in Moscow.