Cabinet reappoints Yelensky as DESS head
DESS head Viktor Yelensky. Photo: nfront.org.ua
On March 15, the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine appointed Viktor Yelensky as the head of the State Service of Ukraine for Ethnic Policy and Freedom of Conscience. This was reported by the government representative in the Verkhovna Rada Taras Melnychuk in his Telegram channel.
Yelensky's term of duty was set to expire on March 26, 2024.
Viktor Yelensky is a deputy of the VIII convocation from the party "People's Front", a former advisor to Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk in 2014, and later was part of Volodymyr Groysman's party list.
Yelensky is a well-known adversary of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, the "father of the law on 'transfers' of communities", and one of the authors of anti-church laws adopted by the Poroshenko government.
As reported by the UOJ, earlier, an American lawyer for the UOC stated that "before Mr. Yelenskyi's tenure as the Head of State Service of Ukraine for Ethnic Affairs, the UOC was guaranteed the right to practice their faith free from harm and harassment, but with his arrival, all this changed."
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