Border guards uncover another UOC-MP cleric and hand him over to Security Service

At the entrance to the city of Kyiv, border guards of Ukraine have seized compromising materials while conducting filtration of two citizens of Ukraine.

Source: State Border Guard Service of Ukraine

Details: During the search of a Ukrainian citizen born in 1969, border guards found  compromising materials that proved his pro-Russian views.

The border guards discovered that the detainee was Russian but has been living in Ukraine for a long time. He was hiding his foreign passport from law enforcement as it contained the markings about crossing the Russian border.

He turned out to be a UOC-MP priest. His mobile phone contained numbers of Russian mobile operators, messages of a pro-Russian nature and search requests for information on how to leave the country for Russia.

In the messages, the detainee complains that "his son, unfortunately, considers himself a Ukrainian like his grandfather, Russia is not where he wants to be…sadly."

In addition to this, the border guards found anti-Ukrainian information in a messenger app that belonged to a man from Luhansk Oblast born in 1985. The gallery on his mobile phone contained video footage from a concert held in support of Russia.

The detainees were handed over to members of the Security Service of Ukraine (SSU) for further filtration measures. 

Background: On 24 March, it was reported that Ukrainian border guards had detained a priest with strong connections to Russia and invalid documents at the entrance to Kyiv.

On 21 March the border guards reported that a UOC-MP priest who supported the Russian occupiers had been detained at the entrance to Kyiv.

In December 2022, a priest with an anti-Ukrainian stance was discovered at the entrance to Kyiv during a search of the bus from Kharkiv to Kyiv. 

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