RUSSIA: Church to be demolished as place where crime “repeatedly committed”?

On 18 June, Slavyansk City Court in Krasnodar Region will resume hearing the city administration suit for independent Orthodox Archbishop Viktor Pivovarov to demolish Holy Intercession Tikhonite Church as an “unauthorised structure”. The Investigative Department informed the administration he had been charged with “discrediting” the Armed Forces for criticising Russia’s war against Ukraine. It said the church was “a public place, with a large number of visitors, where a crime has been repeatedly committed against the basis of the constitutional order and security of the Russian Federation”.