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What did Kyiv's December 2018 laws change?
Summary
A look back at two measures concerning church naming and wartime veterans' status, as reported in late December 2018.
What happened in Ukrainian law around 23 December 2018? Two items stood out in the reports from those days.
On 23 December 2018, Petro Poroshenko, President of Ukraine, signed a law obliging the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (Moscow Patriarchate) to state in its name its affiliation with the Russian Orthodox Church.
A day earlier, on 22 December 2018, veterans of the UPA, the Polissian Sich and units of the OUN were legislatively recognised as participants in combat operations.
The two measures, reported on consecutive days, dealt with different subjects: one with how a church must identify itself, the other with the legal status of wartime veterans. Opinion on either was a matter for commentators at the time; the reported facts record only what was signed and recognised.
