Authorities seize Poroshenko office linked to anti-UOC protests

Poroshenko in his office opposite the Lavra. Photo: TSN

The Eurosolidarity party of Petro Poroshenko has lost its office at 16 Lavrska Street, from which protests against the Ukrainian Orthodox Church near the Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra were coordinated, TSN reports.

Poroshenko, one of the world’s wealthiest individuals, reportedly stopped paying rent for the office after losing the 2019 presidential election.

As the UOJ previously reported, this very location served as the coordination hub for protests against the UOC in 2023. That spring, daily rallies began outside the Lavra walls featuring offensive slogans and posters.

It later emerged that the main protest organizers came from the European Solidarity office at 16 Lavrska Street, just a few dozen meters from the monastery. Activists received tea and handmade anti-UOC posters from the same building. Teenagers and even children were reportedly drawn into the demonstrations.

At the end of April 2023, a video surfaced online showing activists quarreling and dividing belongings inside the party’s office. The footage clearly displayed the sign “Європейська солідарність” (“European Solidarity”) at the entrance. Among the coordinators was 22-year-old Kyiv City Council member Yaryna Arieva, daughter of Poroshenko’s party MP Volodymyr Ariev.

It also became known that the activists closely cooperated with journalists from Poroshenko’s Channel 5, who conducted daily live streams from the Lavra. TV operators and European Solidarity activists reportedly worked together, staging provocations on monastery grounds and filming them for broadcast.

Believers attending prayer vigils repeatedly saw activists entering and leaving the European Solidarity office for days, then heading to the Lavra to “work.” Thus, the rallies against the UOC turned out not to be spontaneous public protests but rather organized actions coordinated from the party office with the participation of Poroshenko’s media network.

Earlier, the UOJ reported that the coordinator of provocations at the Lavra faces up to six years in prison for a drug-related traffic accident.

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