[DISTURBING] Ukrainian Journalist Reveals Zelensky's BRUTAL Crackdown On Orthodox Christians at UN

[00:00:00]I would like to [clears throat] introduce Mr. Rouslan Kinchuk, our next briefer. He is an Orthodox journalist and publicist from Ukraine who was forced to flee to Russia to escape religious persecution at the hands of Ukrainian authorities. Roslan, you have the floor.

[00:00:20]>> Good morning, ladies and gentlemen.

[00:00:25]Thank you very much for giving me the floor and for the opportunity to inform the global community from this rostrm.

[00:00:35]I was born in Ivana Franca in Nadansk district.

[00:00:46]I studied in Kiev.

[00:00:51]In 2019, I started working as a journalist in the information agency, the Union of Orthodox Journalists and for the Pervi Kazatski television channel.

[00:01:05]In these media organizations, I worked for three years.

[00:01:11]The information that I want to share with you is based on my experience of life in Ukraine and of my experience working in the media.

[00:01:26]Given my professional duties, I regularly covered events linked to conflict surrounding the Ukrainian Orthodox Church.

[00:01:41]I repeatedly spoke to clergy and parishioners whose parishes or who personally had been attacked, including by right-wing radical groups.

[00:02:01]Hatred for Orthodox Christians of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church in Ukraine has been going on for a long time.

[00:02:10]Each year there has been an intensification in anti-church propaganda, including in the media.

[00:02:18]As a result of this, there has inevitably been a worsening of the existing schism between the church and Ukraine.

[00:02:29]The peak of this narrative can be located in the events of December 2018.

[00:02:39]and the so-called unifying cathedral as a result of which the Orthodox Church of Ukraine was created through the efforts of the authorities.

[00:02:56]This cathedral did not manage to unify anyone because literally two months after the artificial union, there was a schism, a division that took place between the leading figures of the schismatic Orthodox Church of Ukraine, between Epiphany, Dumanka, and Fileret.

[00:03:26]Denisa and the entities that allegedly unified the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Kopatriarch and the Ukrainian Ortoillus Orthodox Church still exist separately.

[00:03:47]As a result, Fileret accused Epiphany of lying and he put his so-called key of Petriarchite back together again.

[00:04:01]But the creation of the Orthodox Church of Ukraine gave the opportunities the the authorities the opportunity to pit the Orthodox Church of Ukraine and the Ukrainian Orthodox Church against one another, calling the latter an alien and unnecessary church.

[00:04:20]At the same time, representatives of the Orthodox Church of Ukraine were beating and maming Orthodox parishioners and the clergy of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, illegally um moving Ukrainian Orthodox Church churches into the property of the Orthodox Church of Ukraine, forcibly seizing them in cities and in villages.

[00:04:52]I as a journalist and as a parishioner, a believing a faithful, a believing person find it most painful that no one was able to help us.

[00:05:11]>> We were not able to turn to the law enforcement authorities.

[00:05:18]because often they they not only did nothing but they also were on the side of the Orthodox Church of Ukraine.

[00:05:27]We the journalists defending the Ukrainian Orthodox Church were called defenders of the Moscow popes and of the Moscow church in order to bismerch the church and to try and prove that the Ukrainian Orthodox Church was managed as it were from Russia and that together with its parishioners or through um it was trying to impose the Russian world and Russian culture.

[00:06:01]And that's even though the Ukrainian Orthodox Church never opposed the official stance of the Ukrainian authorities.

[00:06:12]Accord based on my experience of speaking to the clergy of the church and the parishioners, I've concluded that the seizing of Ukrainian Orthodox Church churches takes place according to the two possible pos two following ways.

[00:06:30]by falsifying documents and also by holding assemblies of territorial communities instead of religious parishes.

[00:06:43]And now I would like to provide more detailed information about some cases of Ukrainian Orthodox Church churches being seized.

[00:06:54]I have had an opportunity to talk to witnesses and participants in these seizures personally.

[00:07:03]since as I already said uh that was part of my professional duties.

[00:07:10]For example, in February 2019, together with a group of journalists, I spoke to protoas Stefan uh Balan who was the recctor of the transfiguration church in Giz Dichnner in Zbarovsk district of Paul Oblast.

[00:07:36]On the 3rd of February 2019, there was an attack that took place. People burst into the church. They shouted obscenities.

[00:07:51]They described the clergy as the FSB church or rotten ruskies.

[00:07:59]During the clashes, as um Proto Areas Stefan said.

[00:08:13]He was taken by the head and beaten.

[00:08:20]Medical workers uh said that there were bruises all over his body, his head, his chest, his arms.

[00:08:29]In addition to the recctor during the attack on the church at the hands of the attackers, several women were also injured.

[00:08:41]After the attack, the transfiguration church was sealed.

[00:08:50]However, the representatives of the Orthodox Church of Ukraine um hid it and they began to hold services. They break broke the seal and started to hold services there.

[00:09:03]Many um faithful and clergy of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church and people uh visiting them and defending them faced serious consequences including ones that were a threat to their life.

[00:09:26]For example, in Verina in Ivana Franovsk oblast where I'm from, representatives of the territorial defense uh abducted Father Terrauk as uh Father T later reported. did he was detained by force in order to force him to transfer the property of the holy trinitary monastery uh uh Duhonssky to the ownership of the Orthodox Church of Ukraine.

[00:10:08][snorts] On the 16th of March 2022, territorial defense forces carried out an attack on the recctor of the church in Ivanov in Git Oblast at the Archimeand Lavra.

[00:10:36]The fate of of the priest Lavra of the of the priest of the Lavra remains unknown to this day.

[00:10:46]>> Most likely he was killed.

[00:10:52]>> I also know about other cases of abductions, beatings, and various forms of physical exactions against the clergy of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church.

[00:11:04]With my own eyes, I saw tens and hundreds of parishioners and clergymen beaten.

[00:11:15]And all of this took place against journalists as well that published information about attacks on um Ukrainian Orthodox Church churches >> and the lawlessness that was prevailing there.

[00:11:36]I also didn't manage to avoid this persecution.

[00:11:44]>> Starting with March 2022, representatives of the territorial defense threatened me with death and they turned up at my home.

[00:11:55]For that reason, I was forced to leave Ukraine and my fears were justified.

[00:12:08]Currently in Ukraine, five criminal cases have been launched against me in Ukraine.

[00:12:15]And in March 2024, Ukrainian security services officers came to visit my grandmother.

[00:12:26]At the time she was 76 years old and of course she was terrified [snorts] to see armed people in masks with machine guns.

[00:12:39]She was afraid that they would force her out of the home that she had built together with my grandfather.

[00:12:47][snorts] And I of course felt helpless because I could do nothing to help. and protect her.

[00:12:56][snorts] Ladies and gentlemen, I could go on at length listing the lawless acts of the Ukrainian authorities.

[00:13:12]I could recall the anti-church law that was adopted that allows the parishes of the UC to have their legal registration denied them.

[00:13:22]>> [snorts] >> I could talk about the numerous cases of clergymen being mobilized >> even though the authorities know very well that according to the cannons of the church clergymen do not have the right to take up arms but the UC clergy were in this way forced to move over to the Orthodox Church of Ukraine.

[00:13:48]I could mention the metropolitan of um the um Holy Arni Yakovanka theor Metropolitan Aseni Yakovinka who for almost two years um was illegally kept in pre-trial investigative isolation but I would like to make a personal request to you particularly to those ambassadors and representatives whose governments are sponsoring the current Ukrainian authorities with weapons and money.

[00:14:21][snorts] Please convey to your governments and to your presidents.

[00:14:33]uh the truth that they are not supporting a young democracy but rather a brutal regime which [snorts] is killing and maming its own citizens only because they hue to the faith of their fathers.

[00:14:52]The blood and tears of the clergy and the believers of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church are on the hands of those that defend the Ukrainian regime.

[00:15:02]God sees and his justice will be done.