Ukrainian expert Oleksandr Kovalenko has published a photo of ROCinU bishop o Iona (Cherpanov) standing alongside Vasyl Makarovsky, chief of the Myriany NGO, wearing a yellow cap – one of the features of a recent rally outside the President’s Office and Parliament.
On his Facebook page, Kovalenko compared the latest developments with the conception of France’s “Yellow Vests” project, which was supported by Russia.
“I don’t even know how to comment on this clown show. What I know is this. The Myriany project by the ROCinU is a public threat, which is being implemented under the supervision of Russian intelligence agencies, to destabilize Ukraine and sow chaos,” the expert wrote.
He noted that the Myriany project is developing along the same lines as projects manned by Russian secret services on foreign soil, including in France.
“There they had Yellow Vests, while in Ukraine we might get Yellow Caps. I’d dismiss it as ridiculous if it weren’t so dangerous,” Oleksandr Kovalenko wrote.
Memo
On December 8, 2018, the Security Service of Ukraine reported on its website that the FSB and the GRU may be involved in the Yellow Vests protests in France. The SBU published a photo showing two protesters wearing yellow vests and holding a flag of the internationally unrecognized and Russia-controlled “DPR” statelet. On the left is Fabrice Sorlin, member of the Katehon International Analytical Center operating under the auspices of a “DPR” sponsor, Moscow Orthodox oligarch Konstantin Malofeev and his Fund. On the right is Xavier Moreau, a Frenchman who was deployed in the occupied territory in Donbas as an “observer” in sham elections there. He is a founder of Startpol, the Kremlin’s French-based propaganda outlet.
It should be recalled that on June 15, ROCinU believers and members of the Myriany NGO rallied outside the President’s Office against legislation obliging the ROCinU to be renamed to expose in its title their true affiliation with the command center in Moscow. The event was covered by the pro-Russian Strana.ua outlet, as well as Russian intelligence agents operating in the media domain.
“There they had Yellow Vests, while in Ukraine we might get Yellow Caps. I’d dismiss it as ridiculous if it weren’t so dangerous,” Oleksandr Kovalenko wrote.
The ROCinU claimed they had protested outside the President’s Office and Parliament “for the sake of religious peace” and against Bartholomew’s visit.
President Volodymyr Zelensky reacted to the rally in a rather harsh comment: “Old ladies and children sporting OPZZh (a pro-Russian political force – ed.) caps – something is wrong with that church again.”
According to the religious expert Oleksandr Yefremenko, the political rally was organized but by the bishops and priests with the ROCinU, not the Myriany project. The ROCinU is hiding behind a front NGO to avoid responsibility, the expert stressed.
“Standardization of the name will show ordinary people that this is not the Ukrainian Church, but a branch of the Russian Church of the Moscow Patriarchate. That is why the Myriany of ROCinU decided to rally outside the Verkhovna Rada,” wrote Yefremenko, the founder of the Spiritual Front of Ukraine.
Military and political expert Oleksandr Kovalenko said that the Myriany of the ROCinU were aiming to destabilize Ukraine in line with the “Montenegrin scenario”.
A group of OCU believers noted that those who stood in the way of the Ukrainian Army in eastern Ukraine’s warzone now stand in the way of legislative moves by Ukrainian authorities. Also, a spokesman for the OCU, Archbishop Yevstratiy, called the Myriany NGO a Kremlin project, just like the “Russian Orthodox Army.”
However, a spokesman for the ROCinU threatened the authorities that there’s plenty of believers with the ROCinU, and they will “make themselves seen” He previously threatened the country with the so-called “Montenegrin scenario” of religion-based unrest.
The Spiritual Front of Ukraine earlier reported it was Ukrainian millionaire Viktor Vyshnevetsky, the founder of the pro-Russian fringe group “Union of Orthodox Journalists” and “Union of Orthodox Lawyers”, who is behind the Myriany project. Vyshnevetsky is an owner of coal mines in the occupied areas of Donbas and is known for sponsoring the Moscow Patriarchate in Ukraine. According to some reports, he owes his wealth to disgraced ex-president Viktor Yanukovych’s elder son.
The head of the OCU, Metropolitan Epifaniy, said that the ROC in Ukraine is an illegitimate organization that must not be referred to as “Ukrainian Orthodox Church.”
