Russia blasts Kiev over sentencing priest
Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova harshly criticized the decision by a Ukrainian court to put a senior priest from the Ukrainian Orthodox Church under house arrest. Kiev is mocking Orthodox Christianity, according to the Russian official.
Metropolitan Pavel, the abbot of the Kiev-Pechersk Lavra monastery, was suspected by the Ukrainian authorities of collaboration with Russia. Pavel told reporters that the sentence is a "political order."
In December 2022, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky ordered a government agency to investigate alleged links between religious organizations in Ukraine, primarily the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, and the Russian government despite the Ukrainian Orthodox Church cutting ties with the Russian Orthodox Church in May 2022.