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A Ukrainian information authoritative has said suspected Russian citizens, currency and documents were seized successful a raid connected a 1,000-year-old Orthodox Christian monastery successful Kyiv and different Orthodox sites aboriginal connected Tuesday arsenic portion of operations to antagonistic suspected “subversive activities by Russian peculiar services”.
Oleksiy Danilov, the caput of the National Security and Defence Council, said determination was an probe into what had been going connected successful the web of catacombs. The SBU website said the bureau had recovered pro-Russia lit and much than $100,000 successful cash.
“We are not going to speech astir wealth close now,” Danilov told the Guardian. “There’s definite documents were recovered there. And definite citizens were recovered determination … astir apt citizens of the Russian federation. And present we’re trying to find retired what they bash successful determination and wherefore they were there.”
Located southbound of the metropolis centre, the sprawling Kyiv Pechersk Lavra analyzable – oregon Kyiv Monastery of the Caves – is the office of the Russian-backed helping of the Ukrainian Orthodox religion that falls nether the Moscow patriarchate, arsenic good arsenic being a Ukrainian taste treasure and a Unesco satellite practice site.
The raid connected Pechersk Lavra was portion of a wide expanse of the church’s property. The SBU said that successful each astir 850 radical had their identities checked and 50 underwent “in-depth counterintelligence interviews”, including with the usage of a polygraph. More than 350 religion buildings were searched, including 2 different monasteries and the office of the Moscow patriarchate’s diocese successful occidental Ukraine, the bureau said.
The Russian Orthodox church, whose head, Patriarch Kirill, has powerfully supported Moscow’s subject actions successful Ukraine, condemned the raid arsenic an “act of intimidation”.
The SBU said: “These measures are being taken … arsenic portion of the systemic enactment of the SBU to antagonistic the destructive activities of Russian peculiar services successful Ukraine.”
It said the hunt was aimed astatine preventing the usage of the cave monastery arsenic “the centre of the Russian world” and carried retired to look into suspicions “about the usage of the premises … for sheltering sabotage and reconnaissance groups, overseas citizens, weapons storage.”
The “Russian world” conception is astatine the centre of Vladimir Putin’s caller overseas argumentation doctrine that aims to support Russia’s language, civilization and religion. It has been utilized by blimpish ideologues to warrant involution abroad.
The SBU did not springiness details astir the result of Tuesday’s raid. Armed officers were seen carrying retired ID checks and searching the bags of worshippers earlier letting them inside.
Danilov said the probe was inactive astatine a precise delicate stage. “All I tin accidental is that definite institutes are carrying retired actions that are not successful their charters. They are not going to beryllium capable to bash that,” helium said. “It doesn’t substance if it is civilian oregon spiritual oregon different institutions, it is simply a question of the nationalist information of our country. And for galore years we closed our eyes to what was happening.
“Any substance of religion is ever analyzable and it’s not truthful easy. It is rather analyzable and requires a batch of attention,” helium added. “We request to disagreement religion, and the civilians that person definite positions successful the religion who could perchance enactment for the aggressor state.”
The raid volition further sour already tense relations betwixt Russian and Ukrainian Orthodox Christians. The Kremlin denounced the searches arsenic the latest section successful Kyiv’s “war” against the Russian church.
“Ukraine has agelong been astatine warfare with the Russian Orthodox church,” the Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said. “We could spot this arsenic yet different nexus successful the concatenation of these subject actions against Russian Orthodoxy.”
Vladimir Legoida, a spokesperson for the Russian Orthodox church, said: “Like galore different cases of persecution of believers successful Ukraine since 2014, this enactment of intimidation of believers is astir definite to spell unnoticed by those who telephone themselves the planetary quality rights community.”
The warfare has sharpened the divided betwixt Ukraine and Russia’s Orthodox churches and intensified a feud implicit spiritual allegiance. The Ukrainian Orthodox religion formally split from nether Moscow’s enactment 3 years ago, with Russia losing aggregate Ukrainian parishes, but galore historical churches and monasteries person remained loyal successful spiritual signifier and governmental allegiance to Russia.
Last Friday, the SBU said it had charged a elder clergyman from the occidental Vinnytsia portion with attempting to administer leaflets trying to warrant Russia’s penetration of Ukraine.
In May, the Ukrainian Orthodox religion of the Moscow patriarchate ended its ties with the Russian religion implicit the latter’s enactment for what Moscow calls its “special subject operation”, alternatively of a warfare of aggression.
A 2020 survey by the Kyiv-based Razumkov Centre recovered that 34% of Ukrainians identified arsenic members of the main Orthodox religion of Ukraine, portion 14% were members of Ukraine’s Moscow patriarchate church.
In 2019, Ukraine was fixed support by the spiritual person of Orthodox Christians worldwide to signifier a religion autarkic of Moscow, mostly ending centuries of spiritual ties betwixt the 2 countries.
Early successful November, the Orthodox religion of Ukraine said it would let its congregations for the archetypal clip to celebrate Christmas connected 25 December, successful a determination distant from Russia and towards the west. For centuries Ukrainians person celebrated Christmas connected 7 January, the day connected which Jesus was calved according to the Julian calendar.
The determination to 25 December was seen arsenic portion of a bigger nationalist process of dismantling the symbols of Russia, the Soviet Union and communism that took disconnected successful 2014 erstwhile Putin annexed Crimea and kickstarted a pro-Moscow uprising successful the eastbound Donbas region.
Meanwhile, Ukrainians are bracing for what is expected to beryllium the hardest wintertime successful the country’s past arsenic Russia tries to destruct its vigor infrastructure successful an effort to unit Kyiv to negociate a peace.
Volodymyr Kudrytskyi, the caput of Ukraine’s nationalist powerfulness grid operator, Ukrenergo, told a briefing that practically nary thermal oregon hydroelectric stations had been near unscathed by the Russian attacks. “The standard of demolition is colossal. In Ukraine determination is simply a powerfulness procreation deficit. We cannot make arsenic overmuch vigor arsenic consumers tin use,” helium said.
A large vigor supplier said connected Monday that Ukrainians needed to get utilized to surviving successful powerfulness outages astatine slightest until the extremity of March, and the authorities has offered evacuations to radical successful precocious liberated Kherson, which remains mostly without energy and moving water.
“Given the hard information concern successful the metropolis and infrastructure problems, you tin evacuate for the wintertime to safer regions of the country,” the lawman premier curate Iryna Vereshchuk said connected the Telegram messaging app.
Fighting continued successful the country’s south, and successful a cardinal battlefield improvement a Ukrainian authoritative acknowledged its forces were attacking Russian positions connected the Kinburn Spit – a gateway to the Black Sea basin and parts of the Kherson portion inactive nether Russian control.
Moscow has utilized the Kinburn Spit arsenic a staging crushed for rocket and artillery strikes connected Ukrainian positions successful Mykolaiv state and elsewhere on the Ukrainian-controlled Black Sea coast.
Nataliya Gumenyuk, a spokesperson for the Ukrainian army’s operational bid south, said successful televised remarks that Ukrainian forces were “continuing a subject operation” successful the area.
Moscow appeared to beryllium gathering up forces and expanding its subject efforts connected the eastbound Donbas beforehand astir the cardinal municipality of Bakhmut.
Ukraine’s statesmanlike bureau said connected Tuesday that astatine slightest 8 civilians had been killed and 16 injured implicit the erstwhile 24 hours.
Agence France-Presse, Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report.
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