MOSCOW, July 6. /TASS/. Ukraine’s authorities have seized several buildings of the canonical Ukrainian Orthodox Church (UOC) monastery on the premises of the Kiev-Pechersk Lavra, attorney Nikita Chekman, who represents the UOC’s interests, said.

"The monastery’s buildings have reportedly been seized," he wrote on his Telegram channel.

The lawyer published footage and photographs depicting the police and special forces units cordoning off the buildings. In the published video, a UOC representative noted that the buildings were being taken over and urged parishioners to come to the Lavra.

Chekman specified that representatives from the Ukrainian Culture Ministry’s Kiev-Pechersk Lavra Historical and Cultural Preserve had already removed the locks and seized building No. 70. According to him, they had no legal grounds to do so.

The situation around the Kiev-Pechersk Lavra monastery, one of Russia's first monasteries and the oldest monastery in modern-day Ukraine, has been heating up since March 30. UOC monks refused to leave the cloister as demanded by the directorate of the Ukrainian Culture Ministry’s Kiev-Pechersk Lavra Historical and Cultural Preserve, which had unilaterally terminated the UOC’s open-ended lease to the Lavra.