OCU “metropolitan”: It's a disgrace that Ukrainian people are fighting TRC

Mykhailo Zinkevych. Photo: OCU

On January 29, 2026, at an event marking the 118th anniversary of the Battle of Kruty, OCU “Metropolitan Mykhailo Zinkevych of Volyn and Lutsk” delivered a sharp speech on the need for mobilization and criticized Ukrainians’ rejection of the TRC.

“It is a great disgrace when the Ukrainian nation fights the TRC. A disgrace,” Zinkevych said. He called TRC staff “specific individuals designated by the state whose task is to gather an army to defend Ukraine.”

According to the “metropolitan,” those who do not want to fight “teach people to lose faith in the authorities, lose faith in Ukraine, to forgive – as long as it’s quiet, as long as it passes, as long as it’s not me.”

The “metropolitan” also stated that “the future of our state is a militarized state, and there is no other way out.” He urged a change in attitudes toward mobilization: “Just imagine: we don’t want to go to fight. We don’t want to die – nobody wants to – but we don’t want to go to fight. Who will defend the Fatherland? At least in some way?”

Zinkevych emphasized that society is divided into three categories: “There is a part of society that immediately goes to fight, ready to die. There is a part of society that is ready to go when they are called up – they don’t go on their own. And such a part exists. And there are those who, in their soul, cannot fight.”

In his words, “if the state does not establish order and does not raise a large number of those who will defend Ukraine, then there will be very many of these ‘waiters.’”

At the end of his speech, the “metropolitan” urged people to “change their attitude toward the state, toward state institutions, toward statesmen, and especially their attitude toward the ‘waiters’ who quietly infect us from within with rot in our patriotism, rot in our love for my independent, glorious Ukraine.”

Earlier, the UOJ reported that Zinkevych said UOC representatives should be, “if not eliminated, then sent for exchange.”

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