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Russia urges Ukrainian forces to stop sliding into religious confrontation

Russia is alarmed by the continuing outrages of extremists who, having come to believe in their own all-permissiveness and impunity, continue to impose their will and force their order upon others

MOSCOW, February 26.  /ITAR-TASS/. The Russian Foreign Ministry urged all reasonable forces in Ukraine to stop the backsliding of their country into religious confrontation.

“Russia is alarmed by the continuing outrages of extremists who, having come to believe in their own all-permissiveness and impunity, continue to impose their will and force their order upon others,” the ministry said in a statement on Wednesday, February 26.

“The spiritual sphere is not an exception. Following the destabilisation of the political situation, the fragile inter-church and inter-confessional peace that held there until recently came under fire. The clerics of the canonical Ukrainian Orthodox Church get increasingly frequent threats of physical violence and destruction of their churches. Several days ago, attempts were made to storm and seize Orthodox shrines of not only Ukraine but of the whole Russian world - the Kiev Monastery of the Caves and the Pochayev Lavra,” the ministry said.

“All this is extremely dangerous, is fraught with new upheavals and provokes even greater divisions in Ukrainian society. We urge all reasonable forces in Ukraine to prevent further degradation and to stop the backsliding of the country into religious confrontation before it’s too late,” the statement said.