Should the law banning the UOC be repealed?

Did Tymoshenko’s faction vote in the interests of the OCU? Photo: OCU website

Ukraine has been rocked by yet another shameful scandal at the very top of power. The head of Batkivshchyna, Yulia Tymoshenko, was handing out money to her MPs in exchange for “correct” voting. In an audio recording published by NABU, Tymoshenko, counting out the needed amount, explains how they should vote in this case or that.

What immediately strikes you (more precisely – what hits your ears) is that the participants speak to each other in “the language of the enemy” – the very language whose study, not long ago, triggered a furious media witch-hunt against an Orthodox school at the Holosiiv Monastery. Yet the figures in earlier corruption scandals involving Zelensky’s inner circle also spoke Russian.

But the real issue, of course, is not the language. The real issue is that Ukraine’s laws, as it turns out, are adopted (or not adopted) for money. And in that light, the law popularly dubbed “the ban on the UOC” is exactly what concerns us. In both the first and second readings, Tymoshenko’s deputies voted unanimously “in favor”.

And basic logic suggests this – if Tymoshenko was “buying” votes in 2026, what would have stopped her from doing the same in 2023 and 2024? Especially since there are grounds to suspect that this kind of “unanimity” may not have been confined to Batkivshchyna alone, but could also have existed within larger factions.

That is why the question can now be raised about the legitimacy of certain decisions of the Verkhovna Rada. In particular, the legitimacy of that very “law banning the UOC” – previously known as draft law No. 3871. And beyond all its other “shortcomings” (such as discriminating against the country’s largest confession), this law now poses grave questions about the transparency of the vote itself. There is no doubt this must become the subject of an investigation by law enforcement agencies.

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