Lawyer: Soviet-era apparatchik Yelensky tells U.S. about religious liberty

Photo: Viktor Yelensky. Source: DESS

In an interview with American journalist Tucker Carlson, international lawyer Robert Amsterdam spoke about the situation of religious freedom in Ukraine and, in particular, about the role of Viktor Yelensky, head of the State Service for Ethnopolitics and Freedom of Conscience (DESS).

The human rights lawyer stressed that Ukraine bears little resemblance to a democracy at present.

“Ukraine is a one party, one person, autocratic state that has no comparison to any democratic value. Today it is a mirror of the old Soviet Union,” he said.

Amsterdam noted that Yelensky is now the key figure responsible for shaping the country’s religious policy, though his background raises serious concerns. The lawyer stated that Yelensky is “a Soviet-style apparatchik” who “twenty years ago wrote an anti-Jewish screed.”

Despite this, Amsterdam continued, Yelensky regularly represents Ukraine at international events devoted to freedom of religion, including conferences in Washington.

The lawyer said that this is a man who has spent his entire career working toward the liquidation of the canonical Church and who has effectively joined the OCU, which functions as a state structure. "And he was a keynote speaker at the Religious Freedom Conference held in Washington,” he added.

Amsterdam underscored the paradox that international institutions are taking part in events organized with the participation of Ukrainian state agencies that, according to him, are complicit in pressure against the clergy and faithful of the UOC.

At the same time, Amsterdam noted, the Ukrainian Orthodox Church has no opportunity to make its case heard in the United States: “On behalf of the UOC, we cannot get an interview in any press in the United States. Censorship exists in this country, yes.”

He also pointed out that Ukrainian government representatives in Washington actively work with the media, creating a one-sided narrative of events. These officials, he said, continue to promote their version of reality, while the facts of persecution against the Church in Ukraine remain entirely unreported.

Amsterdam emphasized that figures like Yelensky are directly responsible for implementing a policy that, in his view, threatens the very existence of the thousand-year-old Orthodox Church.

As previously reported by the UOJ, Amsterdam noted that although Western media have begun to change their attitudes toward Zelensky, the issue of persecution against the UOC remains completely silenced.

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