A Polish Roman Catholic priest from Horlivka, Father Viktor Wąsowicz has been taken hostage by the Kremlin-backed militants whom certain EU leaders are joining Russia in insisting that Ukraine holds peace negotiations with.

Father Tkhon has been released and is in a safe place after being held by militants from the so-called ‘Russian Orthodox Army’. According to Pastor Sergey Kosyak Father Tikhon is in a very bad state both physically and mentally

A priest from the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Kyiv Patriarchate, Yury Ivanov was abducted on July 8, and Father Tikhon remains a hostage of the so-called ‘Russian Orthodox Army’

There are serious grounds for concern that Father Tikhon who is also secretary of the inter-faith Council of Churches and Religious Organizations of the Donetsk Oblast and one of the organizers of the prayer ‘marathon’ in Donetsk may have been seized by Kremlin-backed militants

In the latest of a series of affronts and infringements of the rights of Crimean Tatars under Russian occupation, a madrasa or Muslim school in the Crimea has been subjected to a long search by armed and masked men looking for evidence of ’extremism’ and arms.

Said Ismagilov, Mufti of the Spiritual Directorate of Muslims of Ukraine [UMMA] has addressed a moving appeal for mercenaries to stay away. “We do not exchange our country for money and a stable dictatorship. There are things which are not for sale.”

In a move which may indicate the growing divide between the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate and the Russian Orthodox Church, one of the UOC MP’s leading clergy, Metropolitan Oleksandr [Drabynko] has condemned the armed attack on the church in Perevalne, outside Simferopol

In the Crimean village of Perevalne believers at a church under the Kyiv Patriarchate have been attacked by armed men, probably so-called ‘Cossacks’, and the church itself seriously vandalized

A worrying outline of some of the ways in which the right of religious freedom in Crimea is under threat after Russian occupation

Ukraine’s three main churches are working together in providing spiritual and moral support to Ukraine’s soldiers, while pressure on the Orthodox Church of the Kyiv Patriarchate has prompted the Crimean Tatars to offer their mosques for church services

The propaganda campaign accompanying the street confrontations has seen the use of the entire range of the political technology arsenal, including the most dirty tricks. A common currency in the confrontation has been the ‘Jewish Question’.

The Association of Jewish Organizations and Communities of Ukraine demand adequate investigation of recent anti-Semitic attacks. They warn that given overt attempts to use the topic of anti-Semitism to discredit the opposition and civil protest movement, the Jewish community should be especially vigilant.

If Viktor Yanukovych’s official response to the pressure on the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church and its clergy was supposed to reduce the negative fallout, it failed

Major Archbishop Sviatoslav of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church notes that for the first time in independent Ukraine the Church has been threatened with loss of its legal status

The latest target of illegal visitations by traffic police officers is the Lviv Greek Catholic priest, Father Mykhailo Dymyd, who has been ministering to members of the Lviv EuroMaidan

The Insaf League of Muslim Women has issued a statement regarding the extraordinary events on 5 October in Simferopol aimed at sabotaging the Crimean Islamic Women’s Conference “Culture and Civilization. On the Path to Development”s

There would seem to be no let up in the worrying sharp increase in attacks on places of religious and cultural importance for the Crimean Tatar people seen in 2012

The President has ignored calls from Church leaders, other religious organizations and public figures to veto a law introducing disastrous amendments to the Law on Freedom of Conscience and Religious Organizations

In the early hours of 1 December around 100 people forcibly dismantled unauthorized buildings erected by Crimean Tatars. A few hours later a guard at the site of the future Soborna Mosque was attacked and Molotov cocktails thrown

Recently passed amendments to the Law on Freedom of Conscience and Religious Organizations threaten to destabilize the already fragile balance between denominations and seriously complicate life for believers