Lawyers and lobbyists representing the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate, UOC MP, receive substantial payments for their work. Their task, however, is to claim that Ukraine is violating the principles of religious freedom.
This was stated by Viktor Yelenskyi, head of the State Service of Ukraine for Ethnopolitics and Freedom of Conscience, in an interview with Hromadske.ua.
According to him, the UOC MP hires advocates both in Ukraine and in the United States.
“Lawyers for the Ukrainian Orthodox Church under the jurisdiction of the Moscow Patriarchate are working in Ukraine. Lawyers and lobbyists for the same church are working in the United States. They are paid substantial sums. We know that, for example, in 2024 and at the beginning of 2025, the amount was 180,000 dollars,” Yelenskyi said.
He stressed that the lobbyists’ role is to claim that Ukraine is violating the principles of religious freedom.
“There is a well-known law firm called Amsterdam & Partners LLP. It is headed by a man named Robert Amsterdam. His main occupation at present is defending the fugitive oligarch Novinskyi, who is also a cleric of the UOC. As they say, as a side job, he also defends the Ukrainian Orthodox Church. He does this by claiming that Ukraine is violating every conceivable and inconceivable principle of religious freedom. Therefore, he argues, the United States should not provide any assistance to Ukraine,” Yelenskyi stressed.
As LF previously reported, a delegation of representatives of Orthodox organisations linked to the Russian Orthodox Church held a series of meetings with associates of Donald Trump and members of Congress, promoting the claim that the Ukrainian Orthodox Church is being “persecuted” in Ukraine. One of the campaign’s principal advisers is said to be lawyer Robert Amsterdam, who represents the UOC MP in its campaign in the United States aimed at portraying Kyiv as a supposed “religious oppressor.” Amsterdam was engaged as a lobbyist for the UOC by Vadim Novinskyi, a Russian Ukrainian business magnate with close ties to the senior leadership of the Russian Orthodox Church.
