“Responsibility for this lies primarily with those who resort to violence instead of dialogue. Especially disturbing is the use of heavy army hardware in a civil standoff,” he said.

The patriarch believes that “the use of force is often motivated by adherence to political radicalism and denial of people’s right to express their convictions”.

“One political position cannot be proclaimed the only possible and compulsory one in modern Ukraine,” Kirill said, adding that the Christian values of peace, mercy and justice had formed the people of Ukraine.