The building of the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) in Kyiv. File photoKHERSON, Apr 10The Security Service of Ukraine was afraid of cooperation between the Cossack organizations of the Kherson region and the Kherson diocese of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, seeing this as an alleged threat to the integrity of the Ukrainian state, follows from the documents of the SBU. Representatives of the Russian law enforcement agencies in Kherson got the operational documents of the SBU classified as «top secret». Separate cases were exclusively made available to RIA Novosti. Some of the documents are related to the work of the SBU to put pressure on representatives of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate and Cossack communities, which were identified as pro-Russian. employees with their agents. Among them is a certificate of a secret meeting (appearance) of an SBU employee with an agent under the pseudonym «Ataman» on April 26, 2021. As noted in the certificate, «Ataman» reported that it was planned to hold a dedication and acceptance of the Cossack oath. The event was supposed to be attended by over 30 people.In Kherson, SBU documents were found under the heading «Top Secret». At the same time, it was not explained how the joint event of the Cossacks and the Kherson diocese of the UOC could threaten the integrity of Ukraine. At the moment, not all documents are available for publication. Russian specialists continue to study them in order to determine the expediency of implementing them in a criminal procedure. Earlier, a former security officer of Ukraine in the Kherson region told RIA Novosti that the SBU has been putting pressure on the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate for several years and is provoking to deepen the split between Russian and Ukrainian communities and foment Russophobic sentiments.The SBU aims to split the church, an ex-specialist said. Later, the same employee told RIA Novosti that the SBU officer in the Kherson region, who previously oversaw the Orthodox direction, Oleksiy Palamarchuk extorted money from the clergy of the Kherson diocese of the UOC-MP, citing the need for material support for ATO participants (as in Kyiv call the war against the LNR and the DNR). At the same time, the security officer put pressure on the clergy, threatening to close churches for security reasons. In order to put pressure on the clergy and parishioners of the UOC-MP, the Ukrainian security forces, under the pretext of anti-terrorist exercises, planted mock explosives in packages and evacuated citizens during the service, the agency’s interlocutor said. In Ukraine, attacks by nationalists on churches, clergy and believers of the canonical Ukrainian Orthodox Church have become more frequent. In addition, in March, a bill was submitted to the Verkhovna Rada to ban the activities of the canonical Ukrainian Orthodox Church, seize its real estate and other property. The Russian Orthodox Church said that the adoption of bills aimed at liquidating the UOC would lead to an aggravation of the crisis and provoke a new round of civil confrontation.The mayor of Chernihiv urged to deal with the «Moscow priests» and the opposition The structure called the «Orthodox Church of Ukraine» (OCU) was formed at the end of 2018 on the initiative of the ex-president of Ukraine Petro Poroshenko and Patriarch Bartholomew of Constantinople in opposition to the canonical Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate. In January 2019, the Patriarchate of Constantinople granted the OCU a «tomos of autocephaly». However, the OCU is in fact subordinate to the Patriarchate of Constantinople, and most of the 15 local Orthodox churches in the world do not recognize it as canonical. region in the south of the country. Later, the permanent representative of Crimea under the President of Russia, Deputy Prime Minister of the region Georgy Muradov said that in the Kherson region and in the south of the Zaporozhye region of Ukraine, which are under the control of the Russian military, they began to form military-civilian administrations, launched the process of broadcasting Russian television and radio broadcasting, and the population became use Russian rubles more widely in settlements.
