75 criminal cases opened in Kherson region over shelling of UOC and other denominations' churches
The prosecutor's office announced the opening of criminal proceedings in connection with the shelling of churches in the Kherson region.
Law enforcement officers of the Kherson region are investigating 75 criminal proceedings related to the shelling of religious buildings by Russian forces. This was announced by Oleksiy Butenko, head of the department for combating crimes committed in conditions of armed conflict at the Kherson Regional Prosecutor's Office, as reported by the publication "Misto Sontsia".
According to him, 39 proceedings concern attacks on churches in Kherson, and another 36 relate to communities across the region. Pre-trial investigations are ongoing in all these cases.
Separately, the prosecutor's office, Butenko stated, is documenting damage to religious buildings that are cultural heritage sites: 28 criminal proceedings are currently being investigated concerning damage to 13 such monuments.
Notably, despite a journalist's question about UOC churches that allegedly might not have been subjected to Russian strikes, and the interlocutor's response about the absence of "separate records by denominational affiliation," the interview was illustrated predominantly with footage of destroyed Ukrainian Orthodox Church temples.
As the SPJ reported, a UOC church in the Kherson diocese was destroyed as a result of Russian shelling.
