In the Zhytomyr region, a court will rehear the case against a cleric of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church

The Radomyshl District Court in Zhytomyr Oblast has resumed the criminal case against Vladislav Smolinsky, a priest of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church. The trial was resumed after the Zhytomyr Court of Appeals overturned the previous guilty verdict due to serious procedural flaws committed during the first-instance proceedings. This was reported by “Media Initiative.”

Initially, the priest of the St. Nicholas Church in the village of Sholomky was sentenced to three years of probation on charges of “justifying the Russian Federation’s armed aggression.” However, as the appellate court determined, the trial court had relied on inadmissible evidence, specifically the protocol of an “investigative experiment” conducted by SBU officers in the security service’s office without proper legal assessment. Furthermore, the court failed to prove the existence of intent and motive for the crime, nor did it analyze the nature of the defendant’s relationship with the witnesses.

Vladislav Smolinsky himself categorically denies his guilt. According to him, the criminal prosecution resulted from the priest’s refusal to transfer from the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (UOC) to the Orthodox Church of Ukraine (OCU), which, in the defense’s view, indicates the prosecution’s bias. The case file states that the priest is charged with statements made in the spring of 2022, in which he allegedly denied the occupation of the cities of Bucha and Borodyanka. The next hearing in this case is scheduled for September 24, 2026.

As a reminder, four lawsuits involving religious organizations of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (UOC) are currently under active consideration in the courts of Ternopil and Kyiv .