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What Kyiv's two December 2018 laws signalled
Summary
A look back at two measures dated 22 and 23 December 2018 that dealt with church naming and the status of wartime nationalist veterans.
What did Ukraine's lawmaking say about identity politics on 23 December 2018? Two items stand out from that weekend.
On 23 December 2018, President Petro Poroshenko signed a law requiring the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (Moscow Patriarchate) to state its affiliation with the Russian Orthodox Church in its name. The obligation attached to the name itself, rather than to the church's activities.
A day earlier, on 22 December 2018, veterans of the UPA, the Polissian Sich and units of the OUN were legally recognised as participants in combat operations. That gave a formal legal status to groups of wartime fighters.
Reading the pair
The two measures are separate, and the reports do not link them. Still, both dealt with how institutions and historical groups are officially defined in law: one by requiring a church to declare its affiliation openly, the other by granting recognised status to veterans of particular formations.
Both were settled within roughly 48 hours, in the final days of December 2018.
