Former military man speaks out about attack on him in MP church in Khmelnitsky

Former military officer Artur Ananyev, who was beaten up in a UOC MP church in Khmelnytskyy on Sunday morning, explained what happened in the church. He explained that amid the daily deaths of civilians and soldiers in Ukraine, he came to the UOC MP church to ask people how they could pray where they maintain contact with Moscow. The defender of Ukraine told this on the air of Apostrof TV.

I am fired now. I came to civilian life and I am trying to adapt. But it is very hard, because every day you see in the news that people are dying, friends are dying, acquaintances with whom you served are dying. And at the same time in my home town the Russian Church tells us there is no war, they continue to serve the Moscow Patriarchy, pray for Kirill and also pray for icons of the Emperor and the Tsar's family," he said.

The military officer stressed that he came to the church and asked a question. Ananyev said that in the Holy Protection Cathedral, clerics and parishioners "beat him, strangled him, slapped him," and one of the patrolmen who arrived on the scene threatened him with criminal liability for "provocation."

He reported that at one point he felt he couldn't breathe.

To my remark that I couldn't breathe, because when they threw me against the floor, my head against the tiles, my head was pinned there and they pressed on my neck, I had nothing to breathe. I reported this to the priest (he must be a priest, I don't know the hierarchy of the church), to which he replied... I don't know if it's appropriate to say what he replied. If censored, that he didn't care much. That I can't breathe," Ananyev noted.

Police officers were called to the scene of the incident.

Subsequently, law enforcers brought the soldier to administrative responsibility under Article 173 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine (disorderly conduct) because "he started a verbal altercation and threw the gospels on the floor".

Also, law enforcers opened criminal proceedings against the priest under Part 2 Article 296 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine (hooliganism) for beating a soldier.

The behavior of the priests and the reaction of the police officers caused a flurry of comments online and a reaction of the authorities.

The head of Khmelnytskyy stated that the agents of the Russian FSB "in the form of the UOC MP" should be banned all over the country, and that the Khmelnytskyy authorities will consider the issue of stopping the use of all the land plots of the UOC Moscow Patriarchate at an extraordinary session of the Khmelnytskyy city council. He also stressed that those who beat up the military should be held criminally liable and the patrolmen who had drawn up a report on the military should be dismissed.

A rally is being held near the church where the incident took place.