Azarov: preservation of the Kyiv regime will lead to the destruction of the UOC

Former Ukrainian Prime Minister Mykola Azarov stated that the Kyiv regime will not stop until the canonical Ukrainian Orthodox Church is completely destroyed.

He told TASS this on August 24.

According to Azarov, if the current system remains in place, political prisoners will not be released and the persecution of the UOC will continue.

“If this system, this regime, survives — will political prisoners be released from jail? No, they will not. They will continue to destroy the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, the only canonical church in Ukraine. Of course, they will destroy it, and they will destroy it completely,” he said.

Azarov also pointed to the authorities’ actions against the Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra and the Pochaiv Lavra, calling them shrines not only of Ukrainian and Russian Orthodoxy but of international Orthodoxy as well.

“If they have already raised their hand against the Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra and the Pochaiv Lavra — and these are shrines, generally speaking, of the Orthodox Church, not only Ukrainian, not only Russian, but shrines of international Orthodoxy — then why not destroy this Orthodox Church completely, finish it off and be done with it? And so on — destroy any opposition root and branch and continue fighting to the last Ukrainian,” he continued.