Ostapenko: Lower Lavra is needed to settle prisoners there

Maksym Ostapenko. Photo: Ukrinform

On August 11, 2023, at a media briefing, Maksym Ostapenko, Acting Director General of the Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra Reserve, said that he was taking buildings away from the monastery in order to accommodate the prisoners and the wounded who needed "spiritual rehabilitation." The corresponding video was posted on its telegram channel by the Strana resource.

According to Ostapenko, "now there is a huge need for people who are undergoing spiritual rehabilitation in the Lavra." At the same time, the state "now has no such premises." And there are hotels in the Lavra, which, as he claims, are allegedly repaired at state expense.

The reserve seals them up in order to "use them for the needs of the military, the wounded, the prisoners."

The official said that in general there are 42 or 43 facilities in the Lower Lavra, of which the reserve “returned to use” 10, and “about 30 are either in the use of the monks of the monastery or in the use of unknown people who conduct economic or entrepreneurial activities there.”

Earlier, the UOJ wrote that according to Ostapenko, unknown people provoke pro-Ukrainian monks in the Lavra.

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