Dmytro Korchinsky

Dmytro Korchynskyi

Date of Birth: January 22, 1964

An activist; co-founder of the extremist organization UNA-UNSO; co-founder of the “Brotherhood” battalion affiliated with the Main Intelligence Directorate (GUR) of the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine. Dmytro Korchynskyi is a well-known Ukrainian radical and provocateur who has been involved in the persecution of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (UOC) since the 1990s.

In particular, the extremist took part in the attack on the Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra in 1992.

Korchynskyi has established himself as a consistent proponent of the persecution of Orthodox Christians, openly using hate-filled rhetoric. Moreover, the radical has publicly called for violence and reprisals against believers and clergy of the UOC.

Militants and provocateurs from organizations affiliated with Korchynskyi have for years participated in provocations against UOC believers, as well as in raider-style seizures of churches.

The radical himself has repeatedly called for the physical destruction of churches and for terrorist acts. Nevertheless, the “Brotherhood” battalion he created enjoys the patronage of the GUR of the Ministry of Defense, and Korchynskyi has never once been held accountable by law enforcement for his public calls for terror against the UOC.

🔴 January 9, 2018 Korchynskyi proposed repressing the leadership of the UOC for high treason.

“Today Moscow is launching its propaganda both in Erephia and in Ukraine through two cults: the cult of the great victory of Kolyma over Buchenwald, and the cult of state-sponsored Orthodoxy,” Korchynskyi writes (stylistics preserved). “Through all electronic means, the notion of the special transcendental respectability of the ‘RPC-ism’ is being inflated. These cults intertwine, and for many in the Pechersk Lavra, Christ is someone like Deputy Comrade Stalin for political-educational affairs (once, like everyone else, repressed, but later rehabilitated thanks to the wisdom of the synedrion). The Russian Orthodox Church and its branch in Ukraine are not a Church either by origin or by essence. The leaders of the so-called ‘Kyiv Metropolis of the UOC’ should be persecuted not only for high treason, but also for fraud.”

(Source: Korchynskyi’s Facebook page)

🔴 March 7, 2018 A group of young people—associates of former UNA-UNSO leader Dmytro Korchynskyi—entered the Dormition Cathedral of the Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra and staged a “prayer service” there.

Among them was a man wearing a cassock who introduced himself as a “priest of the Kyiv Patriarchate.” After the prayer service, the young people conducted video filming near the church.

While filming themselves, the organizers of the “prayer service” stated that the Dormition Cathedral and the Refectory Church should belong to the Ukrainian Church, not the “Moscow” one. They announced that a similar action would be repeated in the near future.

They shared their tactics:
“Today we came to this church and stayed here for half an hour. Tomorrow we’ll come to another one—and leave in a few days. Then we’ll come and we won’t leave ever again.”

Among the young people conducting the pseudo-prayer service was Vita Zaverukha, a woman known for posing in photographs with Nazi swastikas and for openly expressing far-right views.
(Source: SPZh)

🔴 December 13, 2018 Following boxer Oleksandr Usyk’s statement that he would defend the Lavra if an attempt were made to seize it, nationalists threatened him with violence.

The leader of the “Brotherhood” party, Dmytro Korchynskyi, threatened the world boxing champion with “a bullet from a Kalashnikov rifle,” while a former fighter of the “Donbas” battalion promised to “crack his skull.” The radicals posted these threats on social media and voiced them in the media.

Commenting on the boxer’s intention to defend the brethren of the Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra, Korchynskyi told the FAN news agency:
“Ukrainian nationalists rarely go to boxing gyms; they go to shooting ranges more often. I can tell you from my own experience: a bullet fired from a Kalashnikov flies faster than the fist of any boxer.”

(Source: SPZh)

🔴 February 1, 2021 On his YouTube channel, Korchynskyi claimed that FSB agents live in the Lavra, that they have “put up ugly buildings,” and called on the authorities to take the monastery away from the Ukrainian Orthodox Church.

Korchynskyi filmed himself in the Lavra against the backdrop of various churches, monastic buildings, and structures in order to argue that the buildings constructed by the UOC for monastery needs allegedly have no architectural value, and that on this basis the state should expel the monks from the monastery.

The radical stated that the Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra “finally fell into the claws of the Moscow Church at the end of the 18th century (in fact, the Lavra entered the jurisdiction of the ROC in 1688 – Ed.), and immediately began to deteriorate. Everything built before the end of the 18th century is nice, wonderful—it is Ukrainian Baroque derived from Jesuit Baroque. But what was built in the 19th and early 20th centuries is disgusting.”

As an example of such “disgust,” Korchynskyi cited the Lavra’s Refectory Church, which reminded him of “a little frog sitting by a pond.” Using profanity, he referred to the monastery’s brotherhood buildings as chicken coops, kiosks, and shacks, “put up by Moscow vermin.” In his opinion, such structures are inappropriate in a “museum and shrine.”

Korchynskyi believes that 20th-century buildings that lack special value would be better simply demolished, but that “building concrete boxes in the center of the Lavra is a crime.”

According to the radical, monastery church shops sell “amulets and magical images imitating Christianity.”

“The Bolsheviks distorted our shrines by destroying them; their heirs, the Moscow priests, distort our shrines by overbuilding them—they’ll destroy them a bit later,” Korchynskyi stated emotionally. “And I want to ask: where is the Cabinet of Ministers that gave them a piece of our shrine for use? There are now all grounds to take it away—they are distorting and destroying it. Take it away, otherwise the Ukrainian people will have to take it themselves. Amen.”

🔴 March 13, 2023 Korchynskyi posted a threat on his Facebook page directed at the monks of the Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra who refuse to leave the monastery voluntarily.

“The Moscow ‘priests’ say they won’t leave the Lavra. Then they’ll crawl out,” Korchynskyi stated.

(Source: Korchynskyi’s Facebook page)

🔴 March 28, 2023 Korchynskyi called for burning UOC churches.

“You walk into a church and hear the ‘Moscow rite’? That’s it—you can set it on fire,” Korchynskyi stated.

🔴 October 9, 2024 Korchynskyi gave an interview to the outlet Telegraph in which he called for active action by the public, arguing that the law adopted by the Verkhovna Rada banning the UOC would not fully resolve the issue.

“The law won’t change anything fundamentally. It’s not even the Security Service or law enforcement that should work here—it’s the public. We often participate in transferring churches to the OCU, so the methodologies exist. These processes work if there is a sufficient number of active citizens,” the radical stated.

One of the key aspects of his strategy, he said, is taking land away from the UOC that was transferred to it for free use:
“It’s much more effective to deal with the land. The UOC-FSB was given a huge number of land plots for free use. This was mostly done by local authorities, and they simply need to take it all back. Local communities have the right to take back their land.”

Korchynskyi insisted that the land seizure process has not yet begun and that it is precisely the public that must pressure local authorities to initiate it.

Asked whether this would lead to the creation of a ‘catacomb church,’ Korchynskyi skeptically stated that most UOC clergy are interested only in money.

He emphasized that activists have already managed to take a significant amount of property from the UOC and believes the process can continue:
“Recently we’ve already taken quite a lot of real estate from them. If it works in many places, it can be done everywhere. What’s needed is inspiration—and not even 100% of Ukrainians. A hundred people gathering together is enough to take everything, one by one.”

(Source: SPZh)

🔴 January 2025 Korchynskyi announced a seminar titled “Countering the UOC-MP in Ukraine. An Action Plan for Defending Ukraine’s Spiritual Independence.”

The program of the event, scheduled online for January 19, includes discussion of methods for combating the Ukrainian Orthodox Church and various algorithms for seizing churches.

Training in terror against the Church and believers will take place on Korchynskyi’s new website, the “Christian-Patriotic Platform,” which announces:

“The seminar will teach you how to recognize hidden threats in the activities of the UOC-FSB and how to argue your position effectively. Topics include:
– Countering the UOC-MP in Ukraine
– Systematized arguments against the UOC-FSB
– Algorithms for transferring churches from the UOC-FSB to Ukrainian churches.”

(Source: “First Cossack”)

🔴 November 20, 2025 Korchynskyi publicly acknowledged his involvement in the transfer and forcible seizure of Ukrainian Orthodox Church churches in Cherkasy and the village of Moshny.

In his post, Korchynskyi criticized the “Metropolitan” of Cherkasy and Chyhyryn, Ioann, accusing him of “weakness” and of “opposing” the “transfers” of UOC parishes to the OCU. At the same time, he directly stated that “Brotherhood actively participates in transferring churches to the jurisdiction of the OCU, including churches in Cherkasy and Moshny,” thereby effectively confirming his group’s involvement in the seizure of UOC churches.

According to Korchynskyi, resistance to the “transfer” of the church in Moshny by the OCU hierarch allegedly raised “suspicions of agreements with the UOC.” He complained that the hierarch removed from ministry a cleric who had “organized and inspired” activists to carry out the raider seizure.

The extremist also emphasized that the metropolitan “hates Brotherhood” and “calls its members terrorists,” among whom, according to Korchynskyi, many serve in Ukraine’s Main Intelligence Directorate.

At the end of his statement, Korchynskyi suggested that OCU parishioners of the Cherkasy region “pay attention” to the metropolitan’s actions and even “ask him to go rest” at a monastery—language that effectively amounts to pressure.

(Source: Korchynskyi’s Facebook page)