Russia-Ukraine war live: head of Russian Orthodox church added to Ukrainian ‘wanted list’ | Ukraine

As just mentioned, Ukraine’s interior ministry has placed the head of Russia’s Orthodox church – a backer of the Kremlin’s 21-month-old war against Kyiv – on its wanted list.

Ukraine’s security services accuse him of abetting the conflict.

Reuters reports that the measure is purely symbolic because Patriarch Kirill is in Russia and under no threat of arrest.

It is, however, the latest step in Ukraine’s campaign to uproot the influence of priests it alleges maintain close links to Russia and subvert Ukrainian society.

A post on the Ukrainian ministry’s wanted list identified Kirill by name, showed him in his clerical robes and described him as “an individual in hiding from the bodies of pre-trial investigation”. It said he had been “missing” since 11 November.

Orthodox Christianity is the dominant faith in Ukraine and authorities in Kyiv have launched criminal cases against clergy linked to a branch of the Orthodox church once directly linked to the Russian church and Kirill.

Parliament in Kyiv is considering a bill that would ban that branch of the church, which has lost many of its parishioners since Vladimir Putin sent Russian troops into Ukraine in February 2022. The church says it severed all links to Moscow in May 2022.

Ukraine’s SBU security service issued a document last month saying Kirill “infringed Ukrainian sovereignty” by virtue of his position as “part of the closest entourage of Russia’s military and political leadership”.

Security forces have launched dozens of criminal cases, including accusations of treason, against priests and officials linked to the branch of the church associated with Moscow.

Kirill has denounced those actions and appealed to clerical leaders worldwide to stop Ukraine’s moves against the church.

A senior official in the Russian church told Russia’s RIA news agency that placing Kirill on a wanted list was “a step that is as ridiculous as it is predictable”.

Vladimir Legoida, responsible for ties with other churches, told RIA that Ukrainian authorities were guilty of “lawlessness and attempting to intimidate parishioners”.

Hello and thanks for joining the Guardian’s live coverage of the war in Ukraine.

Ukraine’s interior ministry has placed the head of Russia’s Orthodox church, a backer of the Kremlin’s 21-month war against Kyiv, on a wanted list after security services accused him of abetting the conflict.

The measure is purely symbolic as Patriarch Kirill is in Russia and under no threat of arrest, but it represents the latest step in Ukraine’s campaign to uproot the influence of priests it alleges maintain close links to Russia and subvert Ukrainian society.

A post on the Ukrainian ministry’s wanted list identified Kirill by name, showed him in his clerical robes and described him as “an individual in hiding from the bodies of pre-trial investigation”. It said he had been “missing” since 11 November.

Orthodox Christianity is the dominant faith in Ukraine and authorities in Kyiv have launched criminal cases against clergy linked to a branch of the Orthodox church once directly linked to the Russian church and Kirill.

In other developments:

• Ukraine expressed confidence it would receive a €50bn aid package from the EU, despite Hungary’s prime minister, Viktor Orbán, vetoing the funding at a summit in Brussels. In a statement, the foreign ministry in Kyiv shrugged off Orbán’s blocking tactics. It said it expected all necessary legal procedures to be completed at an EU summit in January, with the aid delivered as soon as possible.

• Emmanuel Macron said Orbán must not be allowed to take the EU “hostage” after blocking the aid package. As leaders of the European Union start working on the details of plan B to raise the money through cash and loans, the French president said Orbán was being dishonest to the public about his reasons for vetoing the financial package and would ultimately come around.

• Russia congratulates Hungary for blocking the aid to Ukraine. “Hungary, in contrast to many European countries, firmly defends its interests, which impresses us,” Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said in Moscow.

• The European Commission will release a further €1.5bn for Ukraine in coming days under existing arrangements, the commission president, Ursula von der Leyen, said at a news conference at the end of an EU summit. A new summit to discuss financial support for Ukraine is planned for early new year, the president of the European Council, Charles Michel, added.

• Orbán said on Friday that his country would have plenty of future opportunities to interrupt Ukraine’s process of joining the EU, a day after the rightwing leader’s turnaround allowed EU leaders to move forward on bringing Kyiv into the bloc. In an interview with Hungarian state radio, Orbán said EU leaders had told him he would “lose nothing” by dropping his veto because he would have chances in the future to block Ukraine’s accession if he chose to. “Their decisive argument was that Hungary loses nothing, given that the final word on Ukraine’s membership has to be given by the national parliaments, 27 parliaments, including the Hungarian one,” he said.

• A council member of the western Ukrainian village of Keretsky detonated three hand grenades during a meeting Friday, critically injuring himself and at least 25 other people, authorities said. The motive of the man, who was initially identified as Serhii Batryn, a council member belonging to Volodymyr Zelenskiy’s Servant of the People party, was unclear.

• Ukraine’s biggest mobile operator, hit by a mass cyber-attack this week, said on Friday that it had restored mobile internet throughout Ukraine and international roaming. In a statement on Facebook, Kyivstar said it was working on restoring SMS messaging. The network was operating on all standards, including 4G, it said.

• Russia’s central bank on Friday raised its key interest rate to 16%, announcing a fifth hike since summer in an effort to rein in accelerating inflation. The central bank has been grappling with the economic fallout of the war in Ukraine that includes western sanctions, a surge in government military spending and the call-up of hundreds of thousands of men.

• Japan announced expanded sanctions over Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine, revealing dozens of newly sanctioned firms and other organisations, including export bans against some outside Russia and its ally Belarus. Tokyo added to its sanctions list 57 organisations in Russia and six others in countries including the United Arab Emirates, Armenia, Syria and Uzbekistan, the trade ministry said in a statement.

• Russian anti-aircraft units destroyed 26 Ukrainian drones over the Crimean peninsula on Friday, the Russian defence ministry said on Telegram. Separately, the Russia-installed governor of part of the southern Kherson region held by Moscow, Vladimir Saldo, reported on Telegram that Russian anti-aircraft units had downed at least 15 aerial targets near the town of Henichesk and the defence ministry said Russian forces shot down six Ukrainian drones in the border region of Kursk.

• Ukraine has agreed dozens of contracts for joint production or technology exchanges with western partners, Kyiv said on Friday, as it strives to reduce its dependence on military supplies from the west and to boost domestic output.
  “We have dozens of new contracts between companies on joint production or technology exchange,” the defence minister Rustem Umerov said in a Facebook post.

• Polish hauliers on Friday said they expected to resume a month-long blockade at the largest freight crossing point with Ukraine, as their Slovak counterparts announced the end of their protest. Truckers from both countries are demanding the reintroduction of permits to enter the European Union for their Ukrainian competitors, which the 27-nation bloc had waived after Russia invaded Ukraine.