Ukraine/Russia: Religious nationalism is mounting in Crimea

According to Radio Free Europe reporting on 29 March 2019, Crimea"s Moscow-controlled government has filed a lawsuit demanding the eviction of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church in Simferopol, the capital of Ukraine's Crimean peninsula, which was annexed by Russia in 2014. The Russian authorities claim that the Ukrainian Orthodox Church "has failed to reorganize its founding documents in compliance with the legislature of the Russian Federation and currently does not pay taxes in Crimea and is not officially registered." Rolf Zeegers, persecution analyst at World Watch Research, comments: "The recent recognition of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church as an independent church ended more than 330 years of Russian religious control in Ukraine (RNS, 8 April 2019). The Russian Orthodox Church and Moscow had long opposed this and this opposition has intensified since Russia annexed Crimea in 2014 and has been supporting separatists in the Donbass region. Religious nationalism is mounting and this has repercussions for the Orthodox Christians in the region - they are increasingly under pressure to take sides in the political conflict surrounding them."