"We could not stand his behaviour:" Cherkasy oblast official censoring criticism of the UOC MP dismissed

Oleksandr Dubovy, the deputy head of the Zvenyhorod district military administration (Cherkasy oblast) who censored the local mass media and was sympathetic to the Russian-affiliated Ukrainian Orthodox Church, has been dismissed from his job.

The head of the Zvenyhorod DMA, Yuriy Pikovsky, reported this to Ukrinform.

"I fired Oleksandr Dubovy. We could not stand his behaviour any longer," he said.

According to the media, the deputy head of the Zvenyhorod district military administration (Cherkasy oblast), Oleksandr Dubovy, used to bar local newspapers from publishing any articles containing criticism of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the former Moscow Patriarchate. Namely, he canceled several articles by the Talniv newspaper "Kolos" about the churches switching from the Moscow Patriarchate to the Orthodox Church of Ukraine.

Later, local journalists found out that the Zvenyhorod DMA deputy head attends weekly services in the St. Michael Church (UOC MP) in the center of Lysyanka. A few weeks ago, journalists filmed Dubovy in a deacon's vestment. The official was reading a prayer in Russian in front of the audience.

As IMI reported, in April 2023 the editor of the Talne newspaper "Kolos", Iryna Rohova, said that the deputy head of the Zvenyhorod district military administration (Cherkasy oblast), Oleksandr Dubovy, prohibited the local newspapers from any publishing articles critical of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (affiliated with the Russian Orthodox Church). 

Oleksandr Dubovy himself has argued that he was acting within the limits of current legislation.

"I always make decisions guided by the law and the interests of the community and take an impartial position. I believe that the articles you mentioned do violate the law, so the submissions to print them were declined. The head of the Zvenyhorod DMA, Yuriy Pikovsky, is of the same opinion as me," he said.