Ukrainian Cabinet spokesman calls UOC believers 'potentially destructive elements'

The head of the Secretariat of the Coordination Headquarters for the Treatment of Prisoners of War, Bohdan Okhrimenko, has made a harsh statement against the believers of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (UOC), calling them potentially destructive elements in the context of national security. The official linked this to Russia’s lack of interest in the exchange of UOC clerics accused of high treason and collaborationism.

According to Ukrinform, the Russian side has recently stopped including UOC clerics in the negotiation processes on the exchange. According to the official, this could be a strategic move: «Perhaps they think that sooner or later we will let them go anyway and they will go back to doing what they were doing before. They will use them to destabilize the situation in Ukraine,» he said.

Okhrimenko expressed concern that the influence of the UOC inside the country remains «quite strong». He emphasized that citizens who trust the sermons of the UOC priests could be considered as «destructive elements». According to the version of the representative of the Cabinet of Ministers, such a position of Moscow on the refusal to exchange priests may be aimed at preserving the possibility to conduct in the future activities of information and psychological influence through the parishioners of the church.

We shall remind you that earlier the head of the Office of the President Kirill Budanov during a briefing at the Congress of Local and Regional Authorities on April 9, 2026 spoke out in defense of the official status of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church and warned against state interference in the religious sphere. He emphasized that any attempts of forceful pressure in matters of faith were futile.