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Hindustan Times
5 days ago
- Politics
- Hindustan Times
Ukraine's Catholics tend to faithful driven out by Russian occupation
* Ukraine's Catholics tend to faithful driven out by Russian occupation Photo essay: By Thomas Peter and Aleksandar Vasovic ZORIZHZHIA, - About 25 miles from a slowly advancing Russian frontline, a community of Ukrainian Catholics is tending to people exiled from occupied territory to the country's eastern city of Zaporizhzhia. Church members deliver humanitarian aid to Ukrainian troops and villages near the frontline and nuns offer comfort to families and especially children fleeing the war. "When kids come, especially little ones, they feel safe and cling to us, needing hugs and warmth. New kids always need that embrace," said Sister Lukia Murashko, the mother superior at Zaporizhzhia's Order of Saint Basil the Great monastery. The monastery provides a cheerful environment adorned with Ukrainian flags and greeting cards from soldiers. In June, Sister Lukia and two other nuns made a cake for the 15th birthday of Evhen, a boy who fled the occupied city of Melitopol with his mother and now lives in a drab hostel in Zaporizhzhia. The Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church, a Ukrainian denomination loyal to the Vatican named for its rites similar to eastern Orthodox churches, has over 4 million followers in Ukraine and is the country's largest branch of Catholicism. Orthodox Christianity remains the most popular religion but has declined during the past decade amid tensions over ties to Moscow. Meanwhile, the Catholic Church has grown and its followers now make up 12% of the population, according to a 2024 study by the Razumkov Centre, a Ukrainian think-tank. Catholicism is traditionally predominant in Ukraine's West, but has been growing in the East of the country, much of which Russia claims as its own, including lands it occupied in 2014 and in the 2022 full-scale invasion. Moscow does not control Zaporizhzhia city and it has become a centre for internally displaced Ukrainians from occupied territories. With membership growing, the wooden St. Volodymyr chapel is getting an extension in the city, where Roman Catholicism also has a small presence. During a visit in June, about two dozen faithful and three priests in gold-brocade vestments observed a Divine Liturgy conducted by Father Andriy Bukhvak in the chapel, most of them among the displaced. After Russia occupied most of Zaporizhzhia region in 2022, it installed an administration that banned the Ukrainian Catholic Church and Catholic charities in a December 6, 2022 decree, saying they worked in the interests of foreign intelligence services and stored weapons. The decree accused parishioners of participating "in riots and anti-Russian rallies in March-April 2022." The office of the Russia-installed governor of the occupied area of Zaporizhzhia region did not immediately respond to a detailed request for comment. Father Oleksandr Bohomaz, 36, served in Melitopol, a coastal city in Zaporizhzhia region, for nine months after Russia took the town on March 1 that year along with two other priests, caring for four parishes and faithful who could not flee after authorities cracked down on the church there, he said. "We travelled around, serving as much as possible until they eventually deported us," he told Reuters. During his time under occupation, he said, the authorities stormed church services, collecting fingerprints from worshippers. In December 2022, he was interrogated and taken to a checkpoint where he was told to cross to the territory under Ukrainian control. Other Catholic priests in the Zaporizhzhia region suffered harsher treatment. In November 2022, Russia's troops raided a Greek Catholic church in Berdiansk, a city about 100 km along the coast from Melitopol. Two priests, Ivan Levitsky and Bohdan Geleta, were arrested on illegal weapons charges. They were not freed until a June 2024 exchange of Ukrainian and Russian prisoners, according to a December 2024 report by the U.N. Human Rights Monitoring Mission in Ukraine. The church denied the weapons charges. HOLY STRIFE Religion has become intertwined with the war. In Moscow, the Russian Orthodox Church's Patriarch Kirill has given his blessing to the invasion of Ukraine, which he calls a Holy War. Last August, Ukrainian authorities banned the Ukrainian Orthodox Church , a minority branch of the Orthodox religion in the country that they said was loyal to Moscow. In 2023, Ukraine placed a senior UOC cleric, Metropolitan Pavlo, under house arrest. The UOC says it has cut canonical ties to the Russian church and is the victim of a political witch hunt. The International Religious Freedom and Belief Alliance , a U.S. State Department-backed initiative of 43 countries promoting freedom of religion, has accused Russia of widespread religious persecution in Ukraine. In a February report, IRFBA said Russian troops had killed 67 clergy of various denominations since the beginning of the invasion of Ukraine, without giving specifics. IRFBA said more than 630 religious buildings had been damaged during the Russian occupation, including 596 Christian churches. Reuters was unable to independently verify IRFBA's claims, which have been repeated by Ukrainian officials. Russia's Foreign Ministry has described the alliance's reports as based on partisan and biased information, and said any actions were taken in accordance with the law. The Ukrainian Catholic Donetsk Exarchate, the body of the church in much of East Ukraine, has operated in exile in Zaporizhzhia since 2014. Out of 77 parishes, 36 are under control of the Russian authorities, it said. Stepan Meniok, 75, who was the bishop heading the Donetsk Exarchate until his retirement in 2024, said that when Russia-led separatists took over the eastern city of Donetsk in 2014 they drove him from the diocese's seat. He settled in Zaporizhzhia. "Many displaced people pass through here, and I've heard countless stories of loss: property, lives," he said, adding he hoped for peace talks between Kyiv and Moscow. Father Bohomaz said Russian authorities saw the Ukrainian Catholic church as a threat because it was outspoken against the occupation. "We see our people being beaten, killed, robbed, and destroyed," he said. "We stand with the people." This article was generated from an automated news agency feed without modifications to text.
USA Today
31-07-2025
- Politics
- USA Today
Ukraine arrests air force officer for spying on Western-supplied fighter jets
KYIV, July 30 (Reuters) - Ukraine's domestic security agency has detained an air force officer on charges of having spied for Russia by leaking the location of prized F-16 and Mirage 2000 fighter jets, officials said on Wednesday. The unidentified officer, a flight instructor holding the rank of major, stands accused of helping Russia carry out air strikes by providing coordinates and suggesting strike tactics, the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) said in a statement. "In particular, the enemy's priority targets were airfields where F-16s, Mirage 2000s and Su-24s were based," it said. F-16s are U.S.-made and Mirages are French while the Su-24 is an older, Soviet-manufactured jet bomber. "The agent collected the coordinates of the location of these aircraft, schedules and …the order of their departure." The SBU said the suspect had also passed data on Ukrainian air force personnel and combat tactics to Russian military intelligence. Moscow regularly targets airfields and military bases across Ukraine, especially areas it believes are home to Western-provided weapons like the F-16 or Mirage jets. More: President Trump sets new deadline of '10 to 12 days' for Russia to end war in Ukraine The two aircraft have been critical to bolstering Ukraine's defences against mounting Russian air strikes and grinding battlefield advances in Moscow's three-and-a-half-year-old, full-scale invasion. This month, the SBU detained two Chinese nationals on suspicion of spying on Ukraine's Neptune anti-ship missile programme, a key part of Kyiv's growing domestic arms industry. (Reporting by Aleksandar Vasovic and Dan Peleschuk; editing by Mark Heinrich)
The Star
30-07-2025
- Politics
- The Star
Ukraine arrests air force officer for spying on Western-supplied fighter jets
KYIV (Reuters) -Ukraine's domestic security agency has detained an air force officer on charges of having spied for Russia by leaking the location of prized F-16 and Mirage 2000 fighter jets, officials said on Wednesday. The unidentified officer, a flight instructor holding the rank of major, stands accused of helping Russia carry out air strikes by providing coordinates and suggesting strike tactics, the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) said in a statement. "In particular, the enemy's priority targets were airfields where F-16s, Mirage 2000s and Su-24s were based," it said. F-16s are U.S.-made and Mirages are French while the Su-24 is an older, Soviet-manufactured jet bomber. "The agent collected the coordinates of the location of these aircraft, schedules and ...the order of their departure." The SBU said the suspect had also passed data on Ukrainian air force personnel and combat tactics to Russian military intelligence. Moscow regularly targets airfields and military bases across Ukraine, especially areas it believes are home to Western-provided weapons like the F-16 or Mirage jets. The two aircraft have been critical to bolstering Ukraine's defences against mounting Russian air strikes and grinding battlefield advances in Moscow's three-and-a-half-year-old, full-scale invasion. This month, the SBU detained two Chinese nationals on suspicion of spying on Ukraine's Neptune anti-ship missile programme, a key part of Kyiv's growing domestic arms industry. (Reporting by Aleksandar Vasovic and Dan Peleschuk; editing by Mark Heinrich)
Yahoo
10-06-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Russia and Ukraine exchange sick and wounded prisoners of war
By Aleksandar Vasovic KYIV (Reuters) -Russia and Ukraine said they exchanged an unspecified number of sick and wounded prisoners of war on Tuesday under an agreement reached at peace talks last week in Turkey. The handover took place after an initial swap of prisoners under the age of 25 was conducted on Monday. "Today marks the first stage of the return of our seriously wounded and injured soldiers from Russian captivity. All of them require immediate medical attention. This is an important humanitarian act," Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said on Telegram, adding that exchanges would continue. "We are doing everything to find and bring back everyone who is in captivity," he said. An official Ukrainian video showed smiling prisoners of war leaving a bus at an undisclosed location, wrapped in flags of Ukraine or of their units. Many chanted "Glory to Ukraine." In a statement, Ukrainian military intelligence said most of the freed soldiers had serious injuries and illnesses including amputations, infections and trauma. It also said that due to security considerations, the exact number of those released would be announced only after the exchange process was completed. The defence ministry in Moscow said the Russians freed in the latest handover were currently in Belarus, which borders both the warring countries, and would be returned to Russia for medical treatment and rehabilitation. Prisoner exchanges have been the only tangible result so far of peace talks between the two sides in Turkey, which resumed last month after a gap of more than three years but have failed to make progress towards a ceasefire. A thousand captives on each side were traded in a swap last month, the biggest of the war so far. At last week's meeting, the two sides also agreed to hand over the bodies of thousands of dead soldiers, but this transfer has yet to take place. (Additional reporting by Reuters in Moscow and Pavel Polityuk in Kyiv; writing by Mark Trevelyan; editing by Andrew Cawthorne)
Daily Maverick
09-06-2025
- Politics
- Daily Maverick
Russia and Ukraine exchange prisoners of war
Prisoner exchange follows Istanbul talks on June 2 Emotional reunions as POWs return home Kyiv and Moscow remain far apart on ending the war By Aleksandar Vasovic and Vladyslav Smilianets lt of direct talks between the two sides in Istanbul on June 2 that resulted in an agreement to exchange at least 1,200 POWs on each side and to repatriate thousands of bodies of those killed in Russia's war in Ukraine. The return of POWs and the repatriation of the bodies of the dead is one of the few things the two sides have managed to agree on as broader negotiations have failed to get close to ending the war, now in its fourth year. Fighting has raged on, with Russia saying on Monday its forces had taken control of more territory in Ukraine's east-central region of Dnipropetrovsk and Kyiv saying Moscow had launched its largest drone attack of the war. Officials in Kyiv said some of the Ukrainian prisoners who came home on Monday had been in Russian captivity since the beginning of the war. At a rendezvous point for the returning Ukrainian prisoners, soon after they crossed back into northern Ukraine, an official handed one of the freed men a cellphone so that he could call his mother, a video released by Ukrainian authorities showed. 'Hi mum, I've arrived, I'm home!' the soldier shouted into the receiver, struggling to catch his breath because he was overcome by emotion. The released Ukrainian men were later taken by bus to a hospital in northern Ukraine where they were to have medical checks and be given showers, food and care packages including mobile phones and shoes. Jubilation was tinged with sadness because outside the hospital were crowds of people, mostly women, looking for relatives who went missing while fighting for Ukraine. The women held up pictures of the missing men in the hope that one of the returning POWs would recognised them and share details about what happened to them. Some hoped their loved ones would be among those released. Oksana Kupriyenko, 52, was holding up an image of her son, Denys, who went missing in September 2024. 'Tomorrow is my birthday and I was hoping God will give me a gift and return my son to me,' she said, through tears. PSYCHOLOGICAL ASSISTANCE Neither side said how many prisoners had been swapped on Monday, but the Russian Defence Ministry said in its own statement that the same number of military personnel had been exchanged on each side. Kremlin aide Vladimir Medinsky said at the weekend that a first list of 640 POWs had been handed to Ukraine. The Russian military said its returned servicemen were now in Belarus, a close Russian ally, where they were receiving psychological and medical assistance before being transferred to Russia for further care. Footage broadcast by Russia's RIA state news agency showed a group of freed Russian soldiers on board a coach raising their hands in the air and shouting: 'Hurrah we're home.' The same group was shown holding a Russian flag and chanting 'Russia! Russia!' before boarding the coach. 'It is very difficult to convey what I'm feeling inside now. But I am very happy, proud and grateful to everyone who took part in this process, in the exchange and bringing us home,' said one freed Russian soldier. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said his country had received a first group of prisoners from Russia and that it would take several days to complete the swap. Both sides say the intention for this round of prisoner swaps is also to hand over people who are gravely ill or severely injured. The people seen being handed over so far on Monday appeared to be fit and well. 'Today's exchange has begun. It will be done in several stages in the coming days,' Zelenskiy said on the Telegram app. 'The process is quite complex, with many sensitive details, and negotiations continue virtually every day. We count on the full implementation of the humanitarian agreements reached during the meeting in Istanbul. We are doing everything possible to bring back every single person.'
