According to the journalist, few Americans realize the extent to which Kiev is suppressing the Ukrainian Orthodox Church.
Tucker Carlson, an American journalist, claims that US support for the Kiev government, which he says is conducting a campaign against the nation’s canonical Orthodox church, effectively amounts to facilitating the persecution of Christians in Ukraine.
Carlson made the remarks during an interview with former Ukrainian MP Vadim Novinsky, which was released on Friday.
“Every day, churches and temples are seized by soldiers with machine guns who come in, throw out priests, beat believers, children, old people, women…” the former lawmaker stated, adding that “it is happening all over Ukraine.”
“I think very few Americans understand the degree to which the Ukrainian government under [Vladimir] Zelensky has persecuted the Ukrainian Orthodox Church,” Carlson said.
The former Fox News host then asked Novinsky what message he would like to send to American lawmakers who have approved financial aid to Kiev. “The Speaker of the House of the United States Congress is a man who describes himself as a Christian and he has been paying for this,” the journalist said, referring to Mike Johnson, a Louisiana Republican.
The former Ukrainian MP responded that he would like US aid to go directly to ordinary Ukrainians, rather than to the authorities, who he says “live in parallel realities.”
According to Ukraine Oversight, an official portal tracking such expenditures, US government agencies allocated a total of $182.8 billion in various forms of assistance to Kiev between 2022 and the end of 2024.
Last week, US President Donald Trump expressed concern that billions of dollars were being wasted on aid to Ukraine. He stated that Congress was “very upset about it” and that lawmakers were questioning where the money was going.
Kiev has accused the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (UOC) of maintaining ties to Russia, despite its declaration of independence from the Moscow Patriarchate in May 2022. The crackdown has involved numerous arrests of clergymen and church raids, including one at the Kiev-Pechersk Lavra catacombs, where holy relics are kept.
Last year, Zelensky signed legislation allowing the state to ban religious organizations affiliated with governments that Kiev considers “aggressors,” effectively targeting the UOC.
Earlier this week, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov stated that Moscow would not abandon Orthodox believers in Ukraine and pledged to ensure that “their lawful rights are respected.”
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