OCU propagandist Koshkina pays compensation to UOC hierarch for defamation

Editor-in-chief of LB, Koshkina. Photo: UOJ

In April 2024, the Shevchenkivskyi District Court of Kyiv ordered OCU propagandist and Left Bank editor-in-chief Sonia Koshkina to retract false information published by her outlet and to pay over 30,000 UAH in damages to Bishop Nikita of Ivano-Frankivsk for moral harm.

On February 13, 2025, Left Bank published the following retraction:

"By decision of the Shevchenkivskyi District Court of Kyiv dated April 2, 2024, in case No. 727/11539/22, the information published and disseminated by the internet publication Left Bank in the article dated November 25, 2022, entitled 'Searches at the Chernivtsi-Bukovyna Eparchy of the UOC-MP: Russian passport found on the metropolitan and a 17-year-old boy in bed with an archimandrite' was declared untrue, in particular the following statement: '...during the search, SBU officers caught Archimandrite Nikita, secretary of the Chernivtsi Eparchy of the UOC-MP, in an act of physical intimacy with a 17-year-old boy who sings in the local choir.'"

According to the Telegram channel Pershyi Kozatskyi, on April 16 it was reported that the anti-church propagandist and author of disgraceful fabrications, Sonia Koshkina, has already transferred the compensation ordered by the court to Bishop Nikita of Ivano-Frankivsk.

Koshkina paid the bishop 35,000 UAH, while the publication also incurred nearly 10,000 UAH in legal expenses.

Earlier, the UOJ analyzed the lies, falsifications, and distorted patriotism of the OCU's propaganda machine.

Read also

Armenian bishop arrested for attempted coup plot

The opposition calls what is happening a political crackdown and an attempt by the authorities to weaken the protest and the influence of the Church in society.