Human rights activist: If, in three years, the SBU has only been able to find out that the head of the UOC has Russian citizenship, then there is actually nothing against him

Vyacheslav Likhachev, an expert at the Center for Civil Liberties, commented on the situation with the deprivation of Ukrainian citizenship of the Primate of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, His Beatitude Metropolitan Onufry of Kiev and All Ukraine. The human rights activist noted that in the case of the Primate of the UOC, the deprivation of Ukrainian citizenship is being used exclusively for political purposes. Furthermore, if this argument is the only one that the state can offer to society, then it means that they have nothing else against Metropolitan Onufriy. He said this in a comment to DW.

«If you have evidence that a person is acting in the interests of an aggressor state, then it would be good to see this evidence and apply the law against justifying Russian aggression. However, if in three years the SBU has found nothing on Onufriy except Russian citizenship, which has been widely known for at least two years from a journalistic investigation, then this means that in fact there is nothing against him,» — Likhachev said.

The human rights activist noted that in connection with the deprivation of citizenship of such a high-ranking religious figure, the Ukrainian authorities should fear the reaction from Washington. He is convinced that the UOC will use its connections in the US to influence the situation.

“Pressure on religious communities is something that the current White House administration will not like, because they care about religious issues, and they may hint to Bankova to suspend this process,” — he added.

Earlier, we reported that the Ukrainian Orthodox Church intends to challenge the termination of the citizenship of the Primate of the UOC, His Beatitude Metropolitan Onufry, in court both in Ukraine and internationally. This was stated by the administrator of the UOC, Metropolitan Anthony (Pakanich), during a recent sermon.