The Moscow Patriarchate condemned on Tuesday, August 20, the “illegal” ban in Ukraine of the branch of the Orthodox Church accused of being linked to it. This ban was voted on the same day by the Ukrainian Parliament and has yet to be promulgated by the president, Volodymyr Zelensky. At the same time, the Russian army conquered a new city in the Ukrainian region of Donetsk, while Ukrainian troops continue their breakthrough in the Russian region of Kursk.
Key information to remember
⇒ The Orthodox Church linked to the Moscow Patriarchate soon to be banned in Ukraine
⇒ US diplomat summoned to Moscow after US media reports in Kursk
⇒ Russian army continues to advance in Donetsk
Ukrainian Parliament Bans Orthodox Church Linked to Moscow Patriarchate
The Ukrainian parliament on Tuesday adopted a bill that would ban the Orthodox Church, which is linked to the Moscow Patriarchate and is often seen as a channel of influence for the Kremlin. The vote was welcomed by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.
The church targeted by this decision was once the most popular in Ukraine, a country with a large Orthodox majority. But it has lost many faithful in recent years as Ukrainian national sentiment has gained popularity in the face of the former Russian power. This process accelerated with the creation in 2018 of a Ukrainian Orthodox Church independent of Moscow, and then even more with the start in February 2022 of the Russian invasion of Ukraine openly supported by the Moscow Patriarchate.
According to MP Yaroslav Zhelezniak, the new law, which still needs to be signed into law by President Volodymyr Zelensky before it comes into force, will give parishes of the affected church nine months to “cut ties with the Russian Orthodox Church,” which supports Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. According to media reports, the Russia-linked church still has some 9,000 parishes in Ukraine, compared to 8,000 to 9,000 parishes for its independent rival. In practical terms, Ukrainian experts say, the abolition of parishes linked to Moscow could take months or even years, as the ban on each of them would have to be approved by a court.
The decision of the Ukrainian parliament aims to “destroy the canonical and true Orthodoxy and to bring in its place a substitute, a false Church,” the spokeswoman for Russian diplomacy, Maria Zakharova, raged on Tuesday, quoted by state television. The Moscow Patriarchate denounced an “illegal act.”
Moscow summons US diplomat after reports from kyiv-controlled Russian territory
Russia said Tuesday it had summoned a U.S. diplomat in Moscow, Stephanie Holmes, to protest reports by U.S. media outlets that “illegally” entered areas captured by kyiv in Russia’s Kursk region.
“Strong protests have been expressed against the provocative actions of American reporters who illegally entered the Kursk region to cover the crimes of the Kiev regime in a propaganda manner,” the Russian Foreign Ministry said on Telegram.
Moscow also said it protested against the alleged “participation of American PMCs (private military companies)” in the Ukrainian offensive, implying that American mercenaries were involved in the operation. Their actions, the Russian ministry said, “clearly prove the involvement of the United States as a direct participant in the conflict.”
After months of retreating in the face of Russian troops advancing in the east of its territory, Ukraine has taken the fight to the attacker’s soil by launching an offensive of unprecedented scale against the Russian border region of Kursk on August 6. kyiv now controls 92 localities and 1,250 km2 there, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky assured on Monday.
Several American media outlets such as CNN, the Washington Post and the New York Timesand European channels such as the Italian public channel RAI have in recent days reported from areas that have fallen into the hands of Ukrainian troops.
On Friday, Moscow had already summoned the Italian ambassador to Russia to protest against the report made by RAI in Sudja, the main Russian town conquered by kyiv’s forces, about ten kilometres north of the Russian-Ukrainian border. Rome, for its part, had defended the “independent” work of journalists on the ground.
Russian army claims new conquest in Donetsk region
The Russian military claimed responsibility on Tuesday for capturing the city of New York in the Donetsk region of eastern Ukraine, which it said was an important logistics hub for Ukrainian troops.
The New York town, where German settlers had settled in the 19th century, bore this name until 1951, when the Soviet authorities, in the midst of the Cold War, renamed it Novgorodskoye. The town had become New York again in the summer of 2021, under pressure from Ukrainian activists. It is located six kilometers as the crow flies south of the largely destroyed Toretsk, which has also been the target of a Russian offensive for several weeks.
While the Ukrainian military offensive launched two weeks ago in the Russian region of Kursk is receiving much attention because it brings hostilities to the attacker’s soil, the epicenter of the fighting remains eastern Ukraine, where Russian troops, better equipped and more numerous, are gradually advancing. Russian President Vladimir Putin has made capturing the entire Donbass, which includes the Ukrainian regions of Donetsk and Lugansk, a priority for the Kremlin’s troops.