Political experts: anti-church campaign against UOC discredits the exchange of prisoners

The exchange of captives could have been carried out earlier, but some political forces openly hamper the process, trying to get political dividends, whereas the anti-church campaign, launched against the UOC, discredits the work of the Orthodox Church in this direction. This was said by Ukrainian political scientists, reports the Information Center of the UOC.

According to the expert in the field of religion, PhD Yury Reshetnikov, civil servants must comply with the Ukrainian legislation, rather than incite inter-religious enmity.

"There are so-called "war parties" on one side and on the other side of the confrontation, which demonstrate in every possible way that peaceful settlement of the conflict, including the exchange of prisoners, does not interest them. Therefore, the exchange of hostages is simply sabotaged by representatives of these forces. But, fortunately, today it has become possible thanks to the initiative of the Orthodox Church," says the chairman of the board of the Ukrainian Policy Institute Kost Bondarenko.

He stressed that the UOC has additional opportunities that the state does not have. "The UOC can be a universal negotiator, creating a universal platform for the exchange of prisoners. Confirmation of this is the agreement of His Beatitude Metropolitan Onufry to release "cyborg" Taras Kolodiy. In general, church leaders are quite active in the process of exchanging war captives,” Bondarenko explained.

Earlier, Archbishop of Nezhin and Priluki Kliment reported that the UOC, while taking the most active part in the exchange of prisoners, is distancing itself from the political component of this process.

The exchange of prisoners of war was supposed to occur on December 27 according to the scheme "306 to 74".

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