Expert: Power plays along with nationalists due to UOC supporters passivity
Ruslan Bortnik. Photo: a screenshot of the video on the “1Kozak” Youtube channel
The current Ukrainian government is sensitive to street protests, so it can't resist the national democrats and nationalists who actively rally and protest, while their opponents, including UOC believers, passive, disappointed with the elections, do not go to vote and publicly defend their interests. Ruslan Bortnik, director of the Ukrainian Institute for Politics Analysis and Management, said this on the air of the “Right to Faith” programme on the “1Kozak” Youtube channel.
In his opinion, such passivity allows nationalists, with the support or connivance of the authorities, to strike blows at the canonical Church. The expert believes that further development according to this scenario will lead to attempts to seize significant religious institutions and the liquidation of the UOC as a religious organization. “Attempts to seize religious institutions, new and symbolic, are no longer just rural churches, irreversible. And the attempts to liquidate or split the Ukrainian Orthodox Church as an organization are irreversible,” believes Ruslan Bortnik.
As reported, Ruslan Bortnik believes the US administration may support an attack on the UOC in Ukraine.
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