Kyiv Oblast council calls on parliament to legally ban Russian Orthodox Church

“We believe that a religious organization that is practically under the control of the aggressor state and supports its crimes cannot operate on Ukrainian territory,” Tatyana Semenova, the deputy head of the council, said in a comment on the announcement.

“The Kyiv Oblast Council asks the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine to immediately consider legislation to ban the activities of the (ROC).”

The ROC has already been banned in a number of oblasts, including Zakarpattya, Chernivtsi, Zhytomyr, Volyn, Rivne, and Khmelnytskyi.

Earlier, Ukraine’s border service reported that it had stopped a cleric of the ROC at a border crossing and discovered during a routine check that he could be guilty of participating in sabotage activities against Ukraine.

The border service announced that Russian phone numbers were discovered on his phone, as well as Russian propaganda literature and a 2023 commendation from the head of the Russian Tver diocese.

The SBU has taken over further investigation of the case.