The National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine (NSDC) has instructed the government to submit to the Verkhovna Rada a bill on the impossibility of the activities of religious organizations affiliated with centers of influence in the Russian Federation in Ukraine, President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky said in a video message on Thursday.

“A meeting of the National Security and Defense Council was held today. The meeting at which we considered numerous facts of connections of certain religious circles in Ukraine with the aggressor state,” he said.

According to him, the State Service for Ethnopolitics and Freedom of Conscience was commissioned to “ensure the religious examination of the Management Statute of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church for the presence of a church-canonical connection with the Moscow Patriarchate and, if necessary, to take measures provided for by law.”

The NSDC also decided “to ensure the verification of the presence of legal grounds and compliance with the conditions of use by religious organizations of the property located on the territory of the National Kyiv-Pechersk Historical and Cultural Reserve.”

“All bodies responsible for ensuring national security must intensify measures to identify and counter the subversive activities of Russian special services in the religious environment of Ukraine. And apply personal sanctions - the surnames will be made public soon,” Zelensky said.

According to him, it is necessary to raise the status and strengthen the capabilities of the State Service for Ethnopolitics and Freedom of Conscience. “This structure will be reformed, which will enable it to really protect the rights and legitimate interests of the Ukrainians and the state. With these and other decisions, we guarantee Ukraine's spiritual independence,” the president said.

“I would like to emphasize: in 1991, our state embarked on the legal and democratic path. We will continue this path. Only legal steps. Balanced decisions. And national interests,“ the president concluded.