S.B.U. INVESTIGATES ANTI-UKRAINIAN ACTIVITY BY REPRESENTATIVES OF UPTsMP IN THE DONBASS
In the Donbass, Russia actively uses priests of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Moscow patriarchate (UPTsMP) in activity directed against Ukraine.
Over the course of four years of war in the Donbass, religious and liturgical facilities of the UPTs have been used by special services of the Russian federation for conducting intelligence operations and representatives of the clergy of this confession participate in terrorist activity and they support the militants.
This was described by colonels of the S.B.U. Valery Udovichenko and Yulia Laputina during a round table "Russian aggression against Ukraine: historical parallels and contemporary dimension," the news agency Vchasno reports.
The representatives of the Service of Security of Ukraine (S.B.U.) brought examples of how bishops of the UPTsMP in the Donbass voluntarily became servants of the Kremlin regime.
Thus, in 2014, in Donetsk oblast, monks of the Holy Dormition Sviatogorsk lavra placed on the back side of an icon of the Mother of God a new prayer of pro-Russian contents and distributed in during the Pascha holidays.
Also in 2014 Igor Girkin, one of the leaders of the so-called D.P.R., along with other militants, took refuge in one of the churches of the UPTsMP in Slaviansk, in which a terrorist also created his own battalion and blessed weapons.
"In effect the churches of the UPTsMP became centers on which all relied in their activity against Ukraine," Valery Udovichenko emphasized.
Now the S.B.U. is conducting an investigation of the activity of the UPTsMP throughout the territory of Ukraine.
"The investigation is being conducted by means of academic expert analyses, identification of documents, and testimony of people who saw or were participants of events conducted by the UPTsMP," Colonel Yulia Laputina explained. Questioning of witnesses and a collection of evidence were conducted and church literature was studied to find the existence of manipulative texts."
Julia emphasized that it was in the church sphere that the Russian invasion into Crimea and the Donbass was preceded by a long period of covert aggression and the spread of manipulative technology. (tr. by PDS, posted 31 March 2018)
GIRKIN BEGAN SEIZURE OF SLAVIANSK FROM ARRIVAL OF KREMLIN AGENTS AT THE CHURCH.
The expansion of southeastern Ukraine was prepared by Kremlin agents with the participation of the Moscow patriarchate, and the seizure of Slaviansk of Donetsk oblast and military actions in the Donbass began with the arrival of a Russian counterintelligence officer, Igor Girkin (Strelkov), at one of the churches of the city. A correspondent of Donetskie Novosti reports that this was described by S.B.U. Colonel Valery Udovichenko during a round table "Aggression of the RF against Ukraine: historical parallels and contemporary dimension."
"It was no accident that Girkin arrived and seized Slaviansk with terrorists and a special GRU group. They arrived in Slaviansk right at the church where they were based, and then they began vigorous actions for seizing Slaviansk. In 2014 he was in the Kiev caves lavra and on the territory of the autonomous republic of Crimea during the Gifts of the Magi carrying the reliquary," the S.B.U. colonel explained.
"He had already checked and observed; he personally spoke about this on television, that he visited the Maidan in 2014, and assessed the situation and saw what was happening. The man is a colonel of the G.R.U., who specifically worked on the territory of Ukraine. But again, the use of the church; the church did not drive him off but facilitated," Udovichenko continued.
The representative of the S.B.U. added that even after the fall of the Soviet Union, the church remained a "fifth column" of the soviet regime and of Marxist-Leninist ideology. "There were both agents of the KGB in the church, and people who actually served God, but both the ones and the others remained together and did not split anywhere," he said.
As reported earlier, the S.B.U. investigated archival materials about methods, forms, and means of the use of the churches of the Moscow patriarchate, which have been exploited by special services and the military and political leadership of Russia with the goal of the forcible return of Ukraine into the sphere of geopolitical influence in various historical periods, including today.
We recall, that according to a former spokesman of the press center of the headquarters of the ATO [Anti-Terrorist Operation], Aleksei Dmitrashkovsky, in 2014 Ukrainian troops twice requested permission to destroy columns of military equipment that were sent from Slaviansk to Donetsk under the direction of Russian counterintelligence officer Igor Girkin (Strelkov)," but they got a refusal.
Russian counterintelligence officer Igor Girkin (Strelkov), under whose direction in April 2014 Slaviansk of Donetsk oblast was captured, who also began the war in the Donbass, explained that today he cannot return to the D.P.R. He also declared that weapons for starting military actions in the Donbass in 2014 were seized in Crimea, which had previously been annexed. (tr. by PDS, posted 31 March 2018)
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