MP who opposed UOC announces resignation from parliament
MP Poturaiev became known for saying that after the UOC was banned, its privately owned churches could be used to store vegetables, conduct business or open casinos.
On July 16, 2026, Mykyta Poturaiev, an MP from the Servant of the People faction, announced during a session of the Verkhovna Rada that he was relinquishing his parliamentary mandate ahead of schedule, Judicial and Legal Newspaper reports.
Poturaiev chairs the parliamentary Committee on Humanitarian and Information Policy. For his parliamentary powers to be terminated, the Verkhovna Rada must adopt a corresponding resolution.
The MP became known for his harsh statements against the Ukrainian Orthodox Church and his support for legislation targeting the UOC. He said he did not believe the Church’s claims of independence from the Russian Orthodox Church and described it as “an extension of that dirty Kremlin claw, covered in the blood of the Ukrainian people.”
Poturaiev also claimed that after the UOC was banned, its communities would lose access to state- and municipally owned churches, while services would be prohibited even in privately owned buildings. “Let them store vegetables there, conduct business, open casinos – I don’t know. That is their affair; it is their private property,” the MP said.
According to him, the Security Service of Ukraine should monitor believers holding secret gatherings. “The service will come to them if they gather secretly – God’s service. And that will put an end to it too, only in a worse way,” he said.
Earlier, the UOJ reported that Mykyta Poturaiev had said Ukrainian citizens should be able to allocate a percentage of their taxes to support religious organizations. “The idea is to give Ukrainian citizens the opportunity to use part of their taxes to support the religious organizations they consider appropriate,” he said. Among the possible recipients of such support, the MP named the OCU and the UGCC, while criticizing the UOC’s system of financing.
