Office of the President of Ukraine orders information campaign against UOC in the West

Ukrainian political scientist Kost Bondarenko said that during 2020-2024, the Office of the President of Ukraine paid for information campaigns in Western countries to support Ukraine’s image and promote the interests of the state. One of the areas worked on by the Office of the President was the discrediting of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church in the Western media. Bondarenko spoke about this on his telegram channel «Bondarenko: Past and Thoughts».

«A number of Western publications received an order from the Office of the President to publish materials discrediting the lawyer of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church Robert Amsterdam and Vadim Novinsky, as well as against the UOC as a whole», — Bondarenko wrote.

The political scientist added that the total budget for paid publications for 2024 amounted to about $2.5 million. However, according to Bondarenko, the published articles do not bring the desired effect.

«In Ukraine, any publication in the Western media is perceived with the same reverence as articles in the Pravda newspaper were perceived in Soviet times. Many people think that this is almost the official position of the State Department or the White House. In fact, everything is much simpler and more banal», — the political scientist said.

Earlier, we reported that the Humanitarian Policy Committee of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine was in a real stir in connection with the activities of Robert Amsterdam, the head of the international human rights company Amsterdam & Partners LLP, who represents the legal interests of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church. The committee members claim that the human rights activist is putting pressure on MPs to disrupt the vote on Bill 8371, which aims to ban the activities of the UOC.