SBU reports suspicion against ex-intelligence officer over OCU persecution
An officer of the Foreign Intelligence Service defected to the FSB and began persecuting OCU clergy.
The SBU has reported suspicion against a former officer of the Foreign Intelligence Service of Ukraine in the Donetsk region, Serhiy Havrish. This is stated in the notice of suspicion published on the website of the Office of the Prosecutor General.
According to the investigation, in 2014 Havrish joined the "DPR" and began working in the so-called Ministry of State Security of the DPR. After the start of Russia's full-scale invasion, Havrish continued his service as an officer of the "FSB of the Russian Federation Directorate for the Donetsk Region."
The investigation claims that in 2023 he systematically persecuted OCU clergy Khrystofor Khrymli and Andrii Chuina in the temporarily occupied territory of the Donetsk region. As stated in the notice of suspicion, Havrish repeatedly met with them and coerced them into re-registering their religious organizations under RF legislation.
On September 16, 2023, with his participation, a search was conducted at the Church of the Holy Foremost Apostles Peter and Paul in the village of Svobodne, Volnovakha district. Ukrainian-language literature was seized from the church, and the rector was detained on charges of extremist activity and resistance to "authority." On the same day, a similar search was carried out at the Holy Trinity Church in the settlement of Andriivka.
Both clerics were taken to the temporary detention facility of the "Telmanove District Police Department of the MIA of the DPR," and the following day to the "Telmanove District Court of the DPR." The OCU clergy were tried for administrative offenses – disobedience to the FSB – and sentenced to five days of arrest each.
After serving their arrest, the "DPR Prosecutor's Office" issued rulings against the OCU representatives in which their activities as OCU members were labeled "extremist" due to inciting enmity on national and religious grounds.
The OCU clerics were deported to the Rostov region of Russia, where they spent several months in a Center for Temporary Detention of Foreign Nationals and Stateless Persons. In February–March 2024, they were transferred to the territory of Georgia.
The SBU qualified Havrish's actions as a violation of the laws and customs of war, as well as high treason as he remains a citizen of Ukraine to this day.
Previously, the UOJ reported that a Kyiv court found an OCU "cleric" guilty of collaborationism.
