Where did the clause about the UOC disappear to?

the «peace plan», which Russia and Ukraine will have to sign after preliminary agreement, is gradually undergoing transformations. We are particularly interested in the clause on restoring the rights of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, which was first generalized and now, apparently, has dropped out of the plan altogether.

The first version of the «peace plan» drawn up by Russia and the United States consisted of 28 points, one of which unambiguously stated that Ukraine undertook to restore the rights of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church. In addition, the dioceses of the Russian Orthodox Church established in territories outside of Ukrainian control would be given official status.

Nevertheless, a few days after the plan was submitted to the Ukrainian side and the Americans got involved in the process of processing it to «Ukrainian standards,» the paragraph on the UOC abruptly disappeared from the document. In its place appeared a vague phrase: «Ukraine will accept EU rules on religious tolerance.»

What is «religious tolerance» in the EU, we can observe the last few months. For example, today the Czech government groundlessly accused the Orthodox Church of the Czech Lands and Slovakia of «spreading Russian propaganda» and expelled the UOCC from the local Council of Churches for a year. In addition, the UOC has, since 2019, actively informed organizations such as PACE and the OSCE about the violation of the rights of clergy and believers, but there has been no consistent response from the EU on this matter.

Nevertheless, the story of the transformation of the peace plan and the UOC’s participation in it did not end with this. Just the day before yesterday it became known that out of 28 proposed points, only 19 remained in the document, and those were radically formatted. Although the exact text of the updated peace plan is not yet known, however, referring to the insights published by the Western media, it is clear that the issue of respect for religious rights in Ukraine, much less the interests of the UOC, is not considered in them at all. Moreover, these same insiders claim that Russia, on the whole, is not against it if the church issue, in the context of the general haggling over the future of Ukraine, is taken off the agenda.

It is difficult to say what is actually happening. First, the Russian side has not yet commented in any way on the diplomatic activities of its Ukrainian colleagues. It is quite likely that Russia may reject the «new plan» altogether as a result, and will continue to fight, capturing more and more Ukrainian territories. Secondly, since U.S. President Donald Trump has not yet decided to meet with Vladimir Zelensky, it means that the Ukrainian changes to the peace plan have not been fully accepted by the U.S. side, which, in fact, undertook to solve the problem of the Russian-Ukrainian conflict. That is, in both the first and the second case, the point about the UOC — if it was indeed excluded from the plan — may be returned.

Nevertheless, the fact that unofficial negotiations between Russia and Ukraine (so far at the level of heads of intelligence) are taking place in parallel with the work of Ukrainian and American diplomats raises concerns. This situation can only mean one thing — Russia is more ready than not to accept the terms proposed by Ukraine.

In this case, it is likely that the church issue will be pushed to the back burner, if not excluded from the agenda altogether, for the sake of achieving some more favorable political goals. In general, we should also be prepared for this option, because even if the rights of the UOC remained in the «peace plan», if the current political elites in Ukraine were to remain in place, their observance would be an extremely difficult and practically unfeasible process.