Vandals arrested in Russian-organized church attacks in Zaporizhia

Three Ukrainians were arrested on Feb. 16 in
Zaporizhia – Ukraine’s sixth-largest city – for a series of vandalisms against
Moscow-aligned Orthodox churches as part of Russian-sponsored provocations,
Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) Head Vasyl Hrytsak told a Feb. 18 press
conference. Criminal cases on terrorism have been opened against one organizer
and two perpetrators, he said. The early morning of Feb. 17, the vandals set
fire to the doors of a Russian Orthodox church in the city, a crime that was
fully video-recorded by the SBU in a special operation. The same group was
responsible for two similar vandalism incidents earlier this month in the city,
damaging the facades to two churches.

The Zaporizhia church attacks were planned by Russian
intelligence services for the “destabilization of the socio-political situation
in our country with the use of fake conflicts on religious grounds,” Hrytsak
said. Russian agents are organizing these attacks in coordination with the
Ministry of State Security in the self-declared Donetsk People’s Republic, he
said. In the church attacks, former Zaporizhia news site chief editor Artem
Tymchenko and DNR paramilitary fighter Andriy Kuzmenko, also a Zaporizhia
native, served as the intermediaries who ordered the attacks and provided the
funds. Both are wanted by the SBU, which confirmed they are residing in Russian-occupied
Donetsk.

Similar vandalisms have occurred this month throughout
the Zaporizhia, Dnipropetrovsk and Mykolayiv regions, Hrytsak said. A Feb. 17
early morning attack on a Moscow-aligned church in Kryviy Rih, Ukraine’s
eighth-largest city, indicates several groups are operating. The vandals set
fire to the facade and wrote racist slogans, the local eparchy reported. On
Feb. 9, the SBU reported it undermined an attempt by Russian agents – through
its subordinate DNR structures – to pay a Ukrainian citizen USD 2,000 to set
fire to a Moscow-aligned church. Russian agents are planning similar attacks at
20 more churches throughout Ukraine, Hrytsak said, showing reporters a list he
obtained that includes the payment for each act of vandalism.

Zenon Zawada: Russia is
trying to incite cultural tensions among the residents Ukraine’s Russophile
southeastern regions with these hoax attacks. It is aiming to exploit this
anger on behalf of Russian-oriented candidates during the presidential vote, or
to provoke possible riots if the elections become chaotic and a consensus on a
winner isn’t reached. Having sponsored activists involved in the Yellow Vest riots in France,
we believe similar riots are being planned in Ukraine this year. Evidence has
already surfaced of Russia planning armed insurgencies.

Indeed, the president himself bears some
responsibility for stirring religious tensions, having made creating the
canonical Orthodox Church of Ukraine a central theme of his re-election
campaign. However, recent polls have indicated this effort has improved his
electoral support minimally. Moreover, the recent surge of comedian Volodymyr
Zelenskiy in the presidential polls indicates that southeastern Ukrainians
aren’t much concerned about cultural issues that the Kremlin is seeking to
exacerbate and exploit. Himself a native of Kryviy Rih, Zelenskiy has focused
his campaign entirely on issues of corruption and economics, entirely avoiding
cultural issues.

As a result, Zelenskiy is far more popular than the
openly Russian-oriented candidates, who lack charisma and explicitly represent
the interests of the industrial oligarchs. Indeed his candidacy is also helping
to undermine Russian plans for igniting civil conflict in Ukraine by channeling
the dissatisfaction of southeast residents towards economic issues, away from
cultural concerns.