US accused of inciting religious tensions in Ukraine by Russia

Russia's Foreign Ministry has accused the US of being behind the pressure that Ukrainian authorities have been exerting on the Russian-aligned wing of the Orthodox Church in Kyiv. The Ukrainian Orthodox Church (UOC) defied an eviction order last week from the Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra monastery in the capital. On Saturday, a top Ukrainian cleric from the church was sentenced to house arrest. The ministry said that the capture of the Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra by Kyiv's current authorities is an illegitimate act from a legal point of view and immoral from a spiritual point of view.