Charged with two offences
Ukraine puts Patriarch Kirill on wanted list
December 16, 2023, 7:35 p.m
It’s only symbolic: But Kiev puts the head of the Russian Orthodox Church, Patriarch Kirill, on the list of wanted people. Ukraine accuses the ardent supporter of Moscow’s war of aggression with two crimes.
Ukraine has symbolically put the head of the Russian Orthodox Church, Patriarch Kirill, on a wanted list as an important supporter of the Russian war of aggression. The Ukrainian Interior Ministry in Kiev put the church leader whose real name is Vladimir Gundyaev on the wanted list. Moscow was given as his whereabouts.
Gundyaev is wanted by the Ukrainian secret service SBU and has been hiding from official investigations since November 11th, it was said. The 77-year-old Moscow patriarch was charged with two crimes, reported the Ukrainian state news agency Ukrinform. It is about attacks on the territorial integrity of Ukraine as well as the planning, preparation, initiation and implementation of a war of aggression.
Kirill is considered a close partisan of Kremlin leader Vladimir Putin. Like him, he advocates Russia’s claim to dominance over neighboring countries in which Russians live. In Ukraine he still has influence over the priests and communities that profess the Moscow Patriarchate. That is why the Ukrainian leadership is trying to curtail the power of the church in enemy territory.
According to Ukrinform, the SBU and the Ukrainian Prosecutor General’s Office opened a criminal case against Kirill in November. The reason given was that he was one of the closest Russian leadership circles, justified the war and used the Ukrainian communities for his propaganda. The patriarch lives well guarded in Moscow, so the risk of being arrested by Ukraine is low.