Cherkasy mayor calls on SBU for tougher actions against the UOC

Cherkasy Mayor Anatoliy Bondarenko. Photo: Screenshot from VIKKA video

Cherkasy Mayor Anatoliy Bondarenko, during a broadcast on the VIKKA TV channel, continued to incite hatred toward the clergy of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (UOC). The official stated that the state and security services are not doing enough and should act more harshly against the priests and believers of the UOC.

He mentioned his personal participation in territorial community meetings regarding so-called "transfers" of UOC parishes to the OCU and expressed his belief that "the state must act more decisively in this direction."

"I am convinced that a large number of UOC-MP priests are agents of Russia’s FSB," he assured.

Bondarenko further claimed that in occupied territories, local residents allegedly receive instructions not from city halls or administrations, but from churches. He also stated that Metropolitan Luka of Zaporizhzhia and Melitopol allegedly attended the Kremlin during the "voting for new regions – Kherson and Zaporizhzhia oblasts."

"My question is – perhaps law enforcement agencies have been negligent? I call on law enforcement agencies to take harsher measures against FSB agents. Let me tell you, three years into the full-scale war, no other covert KGB or FSB network feels as free and unrestrained as the UOC-MP does in any country," he concluded.

As the UOJ reported earlier, Metropolitan Theodosiy excommunicated the Cherkasy mayor from the Church due to his involvement in the "bandit-like" seizure of the Archangel Michael Cathedral of the UOC.

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