KYIV, Ukraine — Ukraine’s security service charged a senior Orthodox Christian leader Saturday with aiding the Russian war effort, in a sharp escalation of a dispute over Loyalty to the state deeply divided the country’s dominant religion.
The charges against the vicar, Pavlo Lebid, came as Russian forces attacked targets along the front lines in eastern Ukraine, killing at least five civilians. However, after months of fierce fighting, Moscow struggled to make a decisive breakthrough.
Since the start of Russia’s full-blown invasion last year, Ukraine has worked to remove Moscow’s influence on religious affairs and stamp out clerical support for the Kremlin. The revered abbot of the Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra monastery, Mr. Lebid, heads one of Ukraine’s two major Orthodox churches, a branch loyal to the mother church in Moscow whose leader has speak out strongly support President Vladimir V. Putin’s decision to invade Ukraine.
Many Ukrainians believe that Mr. Lebid’s church has not clearly stated its position on the conflict and is therefore compromised. The Ukrainian security services went further, describing the Franchise associated with Russia as an incubator for pro-Russian sentiment and was infiltrated by priests and monks who directly aided Moscow during the war.
Since the war began, agents have arrested dozens of priests and monks, accusing them of spying for the Kremlin and even helping direct Russian air strikes. Church leaders have said that the behavior of individual priests does not reflect its overall position.
On Saturday, Ukraine’s security services said they searched Lebid’s home before he appeared in a court in the Ukrainian capital accused of making statements justifying Moscow’s invasion. The security agency detailed the allegations in a statement posted on messaging app Telegram and released clips on its YouTube channel that the agency said showed phone conversations and his lectures to support the allegation.
In another clip posted on Twitter and posted on the Ukrainska Pravda website, Mr Lebid appeared in court in a black clerical robe and denied the charges.
“I have never been on the side of belligerence,” he said. “I am against aggression. And now I’m in Ukraine. This is my land.”
Many Ukrainians see the war as more than just territorial aggression, seeing it as part of a broader struggle to break free from Moscow’s political, cultural and linguistic domination and establish independence. country once and for all.
As part of that effort, a Ukrainian Orthodox church independent of Moscow was established in 2019. Since the invasion, Ukrainian authorities have moved to let that church take full control of Kyiv. -Pechersk Lavra, or Cave Monastery, has so far been controlled in part by Mr. Lebid’s branch, the Ukrainian Orthodox Church.
But Mr Lebid this week defied an expulsion order from Ukrainian authorities, leading to an impasse at the monastery, which is a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
Valentina, who joined a rally in support of Mr Lebid’s clerics on Thursday, said she was outraged by the authorities’ moves, which to her seemed to raise questions about her patriotism as a Ukrainian, as her husband spent the past year. at the front line.
“All of us mothers are here to pray for our sons and husbands who are fighting in the war,” she said as she joined dozens of women who gathered at the monastery gates to protest against the ban. government output. She asked to remain anonymous out of fear for her safety in the current situation.
“The apocalypse will begin in Ukraine if our church is taken away,” she said Thursday as she emerged from a dawn service. “It will be closed and there will be no rain. There will be famine and half of Kyiv will drown in the waters of Dnipro.”
Her feelings reflect the layers of the dispute over a church with deep roots in Ukrainian society and the different ways church followers and leaders have experienced.
In addition to the argument that the Ukrainian Orthodox Church is infringed, many Ukrainians say it promotes a view of cultural unification with Russia, which strengthens the rationale for the Kremlin’s invasion — and what Ukraine does. rejected.
It is Putin’s “last cultural outpost in Ukraine that helps him influence the Ukrainian people,” a spokesman for Kyiv-linked Ukrainian Orthodox Church, Mykhailo Omelian, said in an interview in New York. this week. “Liberating Lavra, we feel the same joy we felt after liberating Ukrainian cities from Russian occupation.”
But for Valentina and many other believers, membership is entirely in line with their patriotism, and such considerations are second only to the spiritual consolation the church provides.
The Kremlin, for its part, has described Ukraine’s stance on the Moscow-aligned church as evidence of its hypocrisy in its claims of democratic tolerance. On Saturday, the Russian Foreign Ministry criticized Mr. Lebid’s arrest as an April Fool’s joke and had “went too far”, leading to a “comprehensive crackdown” on the church by Ukrainian authorities.
As the dispute over the church escalates, the fighting, now in its 14th month, continues to flare up, with Ukraine repelling 70 Russian attacks in the past 24 hours on the eastern front, the Army General Staff said. know in the morning update.
The town of Avdiivka in the Donetsk region, which has been under attack since the first days of the invasion last February, has borne the brunt of the attacks, but fighting has also raged in Bakhmut, where both sides suffered heavy casualties for many months, and in the town of Marinka.
A deadly attack in Avdiivka on Friday underscored the painful figure.
The head of the regional military administration, Pavlo Kyrylenko, said in a Telegram post: “A 5-month-old boy and his grandmother were killed, while the child’s father and mother were injured. Kyrylenko added that the family had refused to evacuate before the attack.
After Russian forces failed to capture the Ukrainian capital Kyiv a year ago, Putin has made capturing the Donbas region in eastern Ukraine the main goal of his army. In recent weeks, Russian forces have stepped up attacks in the region as part of the plan. a new attack.
But Britain’s Defense Intelligence Agency said on Saturday that “it is increasingly clear that this project has failed.”
Over a year into the war, the Russian army suffered staggering losses — about 200,000 soldiers killed or wounded, Western officials say, along with thousands of tanks and armor destroyed or captured by Ukraine. Military analysts and Ukrainian officials say that Russia is also running out of artillery and cruise missiles, and is having difficulty replenishing its arsenal due to Western sanctions. Many of its most elite, best-trained and most experienced units were destroyed.
On Saturday, Russian Defense Minister Sergei K. Shoigu met with generals involved in Moscow’s war effort in Ukraine to discuss supplying weapons to the army, the ministry said. said in a statement. Mr. Shoigu said that “measures are being taken to increase” ammunition supplies, the statement added.
Ukraine is expected to launch its own counterattack in the coming weeks, aided by new weapons provided by the United States and other allies. President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine hinted at what would happen in his overnight speech, which sounded like a defiance.
“We are preparing our next steps, our positive actions. We are preparing our winning approach,” he said late Friday. “We will not leave a single trace of Russia on our land.”
The continued attacks coincided with Russia’s assumption of the presidency of the United Nations Security Council in April, the first since February 2022, when it began a full-scale invasion of Russia. Ukraine. The presidency is largely a ceremonial role that rotates monthly among 15 members based on alphabetical order.
But Ukraine has expressed outrage that Russia would take this position due to its attacks on Ukrainian civilians and civilian infrastructure, and in light of the arrest warrant brought by the International Criminal Court this month accusing Putin of war crimes. Ukraine’s Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba called it “a slap in the face of the international community.” Andriy Yermak, Zelensky’s top adviser, said the development dealt “another symbolic blow to the rules-based system of international relations”.
