UNITED NATIONS, November 17. /TASS/. Western countries are scared to criticize Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky as there could be questions about to whom they send weapons, Russian Permanent Representative to the United Nations Vasily Nebenzya said at a UN Security Council meeting convened by Moscow due to the persecution of the canonical Ukrainian Orthodox Church (UOC).

"Russia has already repeatedly focused the Council’s attention on Kiev’s campaign to exterminate canonical Orthodoxy in Ukraine <…>. However, the Western members of the Security Council are turning a blind eye to this situation. They cannot criticize Zelensky, otherwise a question may arise to whom exactly they send weapons and for what purposes," he said.

"Zelensky and his regime are fully on the West’s payroll and [the Ukrainian president] cannot make a step without its directions. It is unlikely that any of our counterparts would dare to make a single reproach to the Ukrainian dictator now. Fortunately, sensible voices are still being heard in the world," Nebenzya added.

Ukraine has recently waged a vigorous campaign targeting the canonical Ukrainian Orthodox Church, including by encouraging its religious communities’ defection to the jurisdiction of the Orthodox Church of Ukraine, which was created from two schismatic entities in 2018. In October 2023, the first reading of the bill on banning the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, drafted following Zelensky’s directives, passed through the Verkhovna Rada (parliament).