Mr. President,

We welcome the dialogue with both Special Rapporteurs. My remarks will be focused on Mr. Shahid’s mandate. 

In Ukraine, church is separated from the State, and the Government does not interfere in the affairs of religious organizations, but promotes maintaining of freedom of religion and belief. In the same vein, we will not allow interference in Ukraine’s religious life by the neighboring state which uses the Russian Orthodox Church as a hybrid warfare instrument against Ukraine. 

In Crimea, the Russian occupation authorities are doing everything to terminate the presence of the Orthodox Church of Ukraine in the peninsula. Within just the first year of aggression, 38 out of 46 parishes in the occupied Crimea ceased to exist; out of 25 priests in 2014, by October 2018 there were only four.  Just last Sunday morning, Archbishop Klyment, Head of the Orthodox Church of Ukraine in the Russia-occupied Crimea was detained and held in custody. Despite his subsequent release, we insist that this kind of harassment is unacceptable. 

Russian occupation authorities have also brutally interfered in the spiritual life of the Muslim Crimean Tatars and arrested or driven into exile this community’s representatives.

In the occupied parts of the Donetsk region, all religious communities have been required to “register” according new rules set by the Russian occupation administration.

At the same time, in Luhansk, the occupation administration’s similar demands resulted in denial of so-called “registration” to all Protestant churches.

Metropolitan of Kyiv and all Ukraine Epiphanius, Head of the autocephalous Orthodox Church of Ukraine, appealed to international organizations and to all democratic countries to take urgent measures to prevent further encroachments on religious organizations and freedom of belief in the occupied areas of Ukraine. 

We strongly support this appeal. 

I thank yo

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