Ukraine slaps sanctions on over 20 Russian priests

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy decreed on January 25 to impose sanctions on 22 representatives of the Russian Orthodox Church.

The affected priests include Metropolitan Hilarion of Budapest and Hungary, Vakhtang Kipshidze, the deputy chair of the Russian Orthodox Church’s public relations department, Nikolay Balashov, advisor to Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and All Russia, and Vladimir Legoida, head of the Russian Orthodox Church’s public and media relations department, a document posted on the Ukrainian presidential website says, according to TASS.

Metropolitan Anthony (Sevryuk) of Volokolamsk, who told a United Nations Security Council meeting by video link on January 17 about the pressure being exerted by Ukrainian officials on the country’s Orthodox Church, was also blacklisted.

Among other things, the priests’ accounts will be frozen under the move, with cultural exchanges with them to be suspended, and they will also be stripped of Ukrainian state awards.

Earlier, Zelenskyy sanctioned 317 Russian, Ukrainian and Belarusian individuals.