OCU adherents start harassing Ukrainian journalist, wife of UOC cleric

Valentina Illina, journalist and wife of the UOC priest. Photo: UOJ

In Zdolbuniv, Sergei Kondrachuk, adherent of the OCU and former head of the District State Administration, demanded not to give a job to the journalist, wife of the priest of the UOC Valentina Illina, who had been earlier invited to the post of editor-in-chief of the local newspaper Nove Zhittia (New Life – Ed.).

The journalist told the UOJ she had been offered to head the publication and raise its rating. When discussing employment, Mrs. Illina reminded the employer, who sympathizes with the OCU, that she is a parishioner of the UOC. The newspaper's management assured the journalist that her religion did not matter, as they need a professional.

According to Valentina Illina, even before she was officially hired, she prepared the first issue of the newspaper. However, the former head of the District State Administration Kondrachuk, having learned about this, turned to the owner of the publication – the head of the Zdolbuniv district council Oleg Datsiuk – with a request to "clear up a misunderstanding" and not appoint "a person with ‘Russian world’ views” as an editor-in-chief.

“What does it mean, Mr. Datsiuk? A desire to enlist the support of representatives of the Moscow Church before the elections? Who advised you to do this? <…> Clear up this misunderstanding, I beg you,” he wrote on his Facebook page.

After that, the journalist received a call and was told not to go back to work. In turn, Datsiuk posted a video on his FB page, in which he stated that there had never been such employee as Valentina Illina.

Two hours later, Kondrachuk, on his FB page, called the appointment of the wife of the UOC cleric "a serious, wrong act" and asked Datsiuk about his personal religious position. Moreover, he rebuked that he had not seen the former at the seizure of the UOC temples either in Buderazh or in Kopytkovo.

On October 26, 2019, the OCU activists, together with Kondrachuk, illegally seized the UOC temple in the village of Buderazh. The official also took part in the seizure of the temple in the village of Bushcha, where he personally broke down the doors of the temple, as well as in a number of other raider attacks on the temples of the canonical Church.

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