Claim: Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s administration advocated “personal economic and restrictive sanctions” be “applied to any Christian caught worshiping in unapproved ways.”
Rating: False
Context: Zelenskyy has advocated banning the “Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate” as part of sanctions on religious organizations affiliated with “centers of influence” in the Russian Federation, but the quote about “any Christian caught worshiping in unapproved ways” is an apparent invention of a Tucker Carlson monologue.
On Dec. 1, 2021, Ukrainian President Volodymr Zelenskyy signed a decree titled “On certain aspects of the activities of religious organizations in Ukraine and the application of personal special economic and other restrictive measures (sanctions).” That order recommended several actions specifically against the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, which is historically associated with, but now technically independent of, Moscow: The Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate.
Prior to that announcement, Ukraine’s Security Services, the SBU, raided the headquarters of that organization in Kyiv — National Kyiv-Pechersk Historical and Cultural Reserve — amid concerns, among other things, “about the use of the premises … for sheltering sabotage and reconnaissance groups, foreign citizens, [and] weapons storage.”
