In May, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky signed into law No. 7172-1 that will ban opposition parties and seize their property. The law targets opposition parties if they deny the armed aggression against Ukraine.
The law includes actions that support the Russian Federation and Republic of Belarus, the two invading countries.
The news was first published on the Ukrainian news website UKRinform. This news was reported the same day US GOP Senators paid him a visit in Kyiv to show their support.
Zelenskyy also closed all of the TV stations and consolidated them into one state-run channel.
“Ukraine has had to take extraordinary measures to fight Russia’s invasion. Among them, the government has consolidated the country’s television outlets and dissolved rival political parties. It says it needs to do this to maintain a united front in fighting Russia,” NPR reported.
On Friday, after banning all TV platforms in Ukraine into one state broadcast, jailing political rivals, and restricting political parties, Zelensky now banned the Ukrainian Orthodox Church.
“A meeting of the NSDC (National Security Defense Council) was held today,” said Zelensky. “A meeting at which we examined numerous facts of the ties of certain religious circles in Ukraine with the aggressor state.”
“It is necessary to create such conditions in which any figures dependent on the aggressor country will not be able to manipulate Ukrainians and weaken Ukraine from within,” he continued, referring to Russia, which invaded Ukraine in late February.
“The NSDC instructed the government to submit to the Verkhovna Rada (Ukraine’s parliament) a bill on the impossibility of the activities of religious organizations affiliated with the centers of influence in the Russian Federation in Ukraine,” added Zelensky.
“In addition, the state Service for Ethnopolitics and freedom of Conscience has been instructed to ensure the religious studies examination of the Statute on the Management of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church for the presence of a church-canonical connection with the Moscow Patriarchate and if necessary, apply the measures provided for by law.”
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