Amnesty International’s annual report on the state of human rights in the world contains, in its Ukraine entry for 2025, a section on freedom of religion and belief. It opens by stating that further steps were taken to disband the Ukrainian Orthodox Church. It goes on to say that the state regulator requested that the UOC “break its ties” with another Church body, and that the UOC refused, saying that this had already been done.
The report records that litigation concerning what it calls the Church’s Kyiv diocese followed in September, and that no decision had been delivered by the end of the year. It notes separately that in October UN experts criticised the legislation behind those proceedings as lacking legal certainty and as falsely equating religious affiliation with threats to national security.
The same experts, as the report sets it out, warned of “persecution” of the UOC, described the criminal cases brought against clergy, a journalist and a defence lawyer as “collective punishment”, and urged Ukraine to cease such trials and to review its restrictive laws.
Amnesty International is a non-governmental organisation with special consultative status at the United Nations. It describes a situation; it does not adjudicate one. The report contains no finding that any of the acts it records was unlawful.
Sources: Amnesty International, “Ukraine 2025”; Information and Education Department of the UOC, 22 April 2026.
