DESS "study” and SBU’s “expert analyses”: Is there any difference?

DESS logo. Photo: DESS website

It took only a few days after the DESS “study” allegedly uncovered “ties” between the Kyiv Metropolis of the UOC and Moscow for a flood of statements to appear claiming it had “proven everything.”

The head of the “Ancient Kyiv” Reserve, Malenkov, declared that since DESS had issued an “official statement,” it was time to seize UOC churches in the capital.

The OCU “hierarchs” are energetically calling on Ukrainians to leave the UOC and join their structure, citing that same “study.” The recent OCU “bishops’ council” even labeled the UOC the “Moscow Patriarchate Metropolia.” In other words, they’re giving the DESS document a kind of global, unquestionable status: if DESS said the UOC is tied to the ROC, there can be no doubt about it.

But even a superficial look at the State Ethnopolitics Service’s “study” shows it’s nothing but a sham document. Its subject of analysis isn’t any UOC documents, but the ROC’s charter – an institution Ukraine’s own authorities practically brand as the spawn of hell. On top of that, the “researchers” aren’t theologians or scholars of religion but simply bureaucrats: administrators and secular lawyers. In short, amateurs. Why their piece of paper should be granted some “universal status” is completely unclear. Well, actually, it’s perfectly clear. The DESS “study” is just a mechanism for legitimizing the government’s predetermined order.

It’s hard not to recall the expert reports by the forensic institute, commissioned by the SBU in the UOJ case (and surely not just that one). These “experts” mix up the names of the OCU and the UOC, call the UOC Statute’s provisions on independence “manipulation,” hear “aggressive NATO” in the words “agresyvnij natovp” (aggressive crowd), and see “incitement of hatred” in phrases like “OCU raiders,” among other absurdities. In other words, these are no experts at all. Yet their scribblings can send journalists away for life (those trials are still ongoing).

Both the DESS “study” and the SBU’s “expert analysis” use exactly the same scheme. The authorities confer a loud title on someone and then push through the needed decision via them. “Look – it’s not just some guy off the street saying this, it’s an ‘expert analysis’ from KNIISE [Kyiv Scientific Research Institute of Forensic Expertise] for the SBU, or a ‘study’ by DESS.” The fact that these documents are full of elementary errors, manipulations, and even lies bothers no one. The only thing that matters is the 'label.'

Incidentally, the expert analysis in the UOJ case includes a great phrase: “manipulation in the form of appeal to authority.” Honestly, you couldn’t say it better.

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