The Russian ambassador to the UN, Vasili Nebenzia, assured the UN Security Council on Tuesday that the government of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky is preparing new initiatives to «completely eliminate» the Ukrainian Orthodox Church.
«According to available information, the ruling regime is preparing a series of new initiatives, the aim of which is to discriminate against the communities and believers of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, strip it of its historical and legal name, and even eliminate it altogether,» Nebenzia said, TASS news agency reported.
In this sense, he explained that Ukraine is «on the verge of a large-scale inter-confessional conflict that the history of modern Europe has not yet seen». Nebenzia specified that Kiev, with Western support, has established a plan to «undermine» the Church.
In this way, he stressed that Moscow will not tolerate that «near» its borders «a Russophobic and anti-Christian dictatorship is being formed». «Ukraine is now literally one step away from a fratricidal internal religious catastrophe,» he said in another part of the speech, according to a statement from the Russian mission to the UN.
During his appearance, the Russian ambassador also took the opportunity to call on the United Nations to provide «active assistance» in the release of human rights activist Elena Berezhnaya, who is being held in Ukraine.
«Ukrainian human rights activist Elena Berezhnaya, who for eight years has been studying and documenting the process of formation of neo-Nazism in Ukraine and spoke before the members of the Security Council in March last year, was arrested by the Ukrainian special services and remains in custody on an absurd charge of treason,» he said.
He has also said he knows of cases of «people who are persecuted and arrested on the basis of publications, statements and even complaints.» «In general, just because they listen to Russian music and read Russian-language media,» he stressed.
Source: (EUROPA PRESS)
