What did Kyiv ask of the world in April 2018?
A look back at two appeals made by Ukrainian officials in the days before 23 April 2018, one on a flooded-mine threat and one on church autocephaly.
What was Ukraine asking of the outside world in the days leading up to 23 April 2018? Reports from 19 April that year show two separate appeals, one addressed to international partners and one to a religious leader abroad.
On 19 April 2018, Ukrainian ecology minister Ostap Semerak warned of a major nuclear disaster if pro-Russia separatists went ahead with a plan to flood a mine in Donbass. A small nuclear weapon had been tested at the site in the 1970s. Semerak appealed for international assistance to prevent the flooding, framing the matter as part of the war in Donbass.
The same day, the Verkhovna Rada backed an appeal from the President to Bartholomew, Archbishop of Constantinople and Ecumenical Patriarch. The appeal asked him to issue a Tomos on autocephaly for the Orthodox church in Ukraine.
The two items were unrelated in subject. Both, however, were requests directed beyond Ukraine's borders: one for help in averting an environmental and nuclear danger, the other for a decision on the status of the Orthodox church in the country.
