In a conversation with American podcaster Tucker Carlson, former MP Vadym Novinskyi voiced Russia’s traditional accusations against Ukraine, including regarding the war and the government’s policy in the field of religion.
This was stated in an interview with Ukrinform by the head of the State Service of Ukraine for Ethnopolitics and Freedom of Conscience, Viktor Yelenskyi.
“It is difficult to call this an interview. Mr. Carlson simply gave Novinskyi the opportunity to speak up and answer questions that, apparently, he had himself formulated. About a third of the ‘interview’ is devoted to the religious situation of Ukraine – and this was the usual set of accusations against Ukrainian religious policy. The other two thirds are accusations against Ukraine in general. There was everything: ‘Ukraine is to be blamed for the war’, ‘Ukraine attacked itself’ – this whole range of Russian propaganda,” he said.
Yelenskyy recalled that Novinskyi is a priest, archdeacon with the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (in unity with the Moscow Patriarchate), and expressed a desire to hear a reaction to this interview from the clergy.
As reported earlier, on May 23, ex-MP Vadym Novinskyi gave an interview to American podcaster Tucker Carlson, where he spoke about the alleged “ban on Christianity” in Ukraine.
In January 2025, the State Bureau of Investigation and the Security Service pressed against Novinskyi charges of high treason and incitement of religious hatred.
In January 2023, President Volodymyr Zelensky hit Novinskyi with sanctions.
In July 2022, Novinskyi resigned from his parliamentary work, allegedly in order to focus on “humanitarian projects, the development of the national economy, serving the UOC, and the restoration of destroyed churches”.
