"Chesno" movement activist on voting Bill 8371: The bang flopped

Iryna Fedoriv. Photo: zmina.info

Draft Law No. 8371, which effectively prohibits the UOC, was planned to be voted on before February 24th. However, as complained in a comment to Focus by Iryna Fedoriv, an activist of the Chesno movement, which monitors parliament's activities and also includes UOC clergy in the "registry of state traitors", this idea failed.

"The first reading in the autumn was very difficult, the speaker said there were no votes. And in order to change the course of events, MP from the Servant of the People party Oleksandr Aliksiychuk and deputy faction leader Yulia Klymenko collected wet signatures – 226 autographs to publicly prove to the head of the Verkhovna Rada that this is not the case," Fedoriv claims. "We thought that everything would be prepared faster by the second reading."

According to her, there was initially the idea of a "patriotic vote" before February 24th. "Like, bang – we prohibited it. But the bang didn't happen, because the Committee on Humanitarian and Information Policy, led by Mykyta Poturaev, worked out all the amendments. In particular, the provisions of an alternative bill by Mykola Kniazhytsky, a member of the relevant committee, were taken into account," she added.

The activist also explained why, after the amendments were made and supported by the committee, the draft law was not published.

"As we were told, they were waiting for the U.S. Congress to adopt an aid package for Ukraine," Fedoriv said, adding that the Republicans have their own vision of this issue. In her opinion, this vision is partially shaped by "FSB in cassocks". Commenting on her words in the publication, they referred to the international lawyer of the UOC, Robert Amsterdam.

"Indeed, in March 2024, the Verkhovna Rada received several letters warning of possible sanctions if the draft law is passed. One of them was from the international lawyers of the UOC MP company Amsterdam & Partners LLP, which is its legal adviser," Focus wrote.

As reported by the UOJ, Vasyl Lomachenko was included in the "registry of state traitors", which is maintained by the Chesno movement. The reason for this was the boxer's post on Instagram with the sermon of Metropolitan Longin of Bancheny. This movement also included Metropolitan Luke of Zaporizhzhia and Melitopol in its registry.

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