On the government's failure on American "religious track"
Apparently, the Ukrainian authorities are suffering a crushing defeat on the "religious track" in the United States.
More than a month has passed since the large-scale meeting in Congress of 180 clergy and believers from American Orthodox denominations (Serbian, Antiochian Churches, OCA and ROCOR) in defense of the UOC, but supporters of the Ukrainian government continue their attempts at discreditation.
In December, Forbes published an article by Ukrainian pro-government author David Kirichenko, in which the meeting participants were called Kremlin propagandists. After letters to the editorial office threatening legal action, Forbes removed the slanderous publication.
And here it should be noted that in media there exists a class of so-called commissioned publications, for the placement of which clients pay considerable money. We suspect that Kirichenko's article belonged precisely to this category. And it is not hard to guess who was promoting this narrative and trying to portray Americans who criticize the Ukrainian authorities over the persecution of the UOC as "Kremlin agents".
Since then, none of the major outlets has published anything of the sort. Apparently, reputation is worth more than money. As a result, the authorities had to make do with the Ukrainian English-language outlet Kyiv Post, which published another article by Kirichenko titled "Why the Russian Orthodox Church Is Lobbying Its Interests in Washington". As in the article removed from Forbes, Kirichenko sought to convince readers that there is no UOC persecution and that the clergy and believers from American denominations who spoke out in its defense are nothing but Russian propagandists.
The article is simply enormous, mixing everything together – attempts to present the UOC as a small marginal structure; manipulations with criminal cases against priests; efforts to prove the "Russianness" of the Serbian Church and OCA, mud-slinging against the UOJ in Ukraine and the USA, and even attempts to present Congresswoman Anna Paulina Luna as a Kremlin sympathizer.
The only thing the commissioners of the material managed to "squeeze out" was promotion of the article by Republican Don Bacon, whom the author mentioned in his piece. Bacon wrote on X that Orthodox Americans defending the UOC are "taking orders from the Kremlin" and engaging in "Russian propaganda". It is hard to say why a serious politician agreed to publish such blatantly absurd accusations, the groundlessness of which is obvious.
Russia indeed speaks about persecutions of the UOC, and this is beneficial to Russians. But it's also beneficial for them to speak about the shameful corruption in Ukrainian energy sector by top Ukrainian officials. Does this mean that NABU and journalists covering corruption scandals are "Kremlin agents"? Yet the logic here is exactly the same.
Apparently, the Ukrainian government is losing completely on the "religious track" in the USA. Indirect proof of this may be Zelensky's decree dismissing his advisor Andrew Mack. According to media reports, he lobbied Ukrainian government interests in the USA.
He failed.
