Church issue will be the subject of negotiations between Ukraine and Russia, - Ukrainian diplomat

Former Deputy Foreign Minister for European Integration Olena Zerkal said that the Ukrainian church issue will be one of the elements of peace talks between Ukraine and Russia. The diplomat noted that Ukraine is ready to give up territories, but not fundamental issues, such as the army, language and faith. She said this in an interview with Radio Liberty.

“Issues such as language and faith, and these are the key issues of this piece of paper that was discussed in 2022 (Istanbul talks of 2022 — ed.), because I do not want to call it an agreement, because for me it is a piece of paper. Both language and faith are issues that will be on the agenda. And for people who are not aware of the Ukrainian discourse, and Trump is not aware of our historical problem, he does not understand what the problem of the Russian patriarchate in Ukraine is, and he does not understand what the problem of using the Russian language is,” — Zerkal said.

The diplomat added that the issue of territories is not as relevant for Ukraine today as the issues of the army, language and faith. In her opinion, it is much more important to resolve the issue with the “Moscow church” than to preserve the territorial integrity of the country.

“As for Ukraine, I don’t think we have a problem with the idea that the territory is our red lines. I really think that for us, red lines exist in the sense of preserving statehood. The state cannot be preserved if the Russian church and the Russian language are imposed on us. And we need to preserve the army. These are our three key factors and red lines,” — she added.