A top Ukrainian official criticised the symbolic blow of Russia taking over the rotating presidency of the United Nations Security Council.
Andriy Yermak, the Ukrainian president's chief of staff, wrote on Saturday: "It is not just a shame." It is a symbolic blow to the rules-based system of international relations. Russia took over the presidency of the UN's top security body, which rotates every month.
The last time Moscow held a post was in February 2022 when its troops launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine, according to Reuters reports.
On Friday, the Kremlin said it planned to exercise all its rights in the role.
The US has urged Russia to conduct professionally when it assumes the role, saying there is no way to block Moscow from the post.
Yermak also hit Iran, whom Kyiv and its allies accuse of supplying Russia with arms, including hundreds of assault drones that have menaced Ukrainian infrastructure facilities. Tehran denies supplying Russia with weapons.
Referring to Iran's Islamic Republic Day holiday, Yermak said it was very telling that another terror state Russia begins to preside over the UN Security Council on the holiday of one terror state Iran. Ukraine's top security agency has been alerted by a top Orthodox priest that he is suspected of justifying Russia's aggression, which is a criminal offence.
Metropolitan Pavel, the abbot of the Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra monastery in the Ukrainian capital, has been summoned for questioning.
Photographs released by the Ukrainian security service SBU showed officers outside Pavel's home on Saturday.
Pavel's branch of Ukraine's Orthodox Church UOC was formally linked to the Russian Orthodox Church until recently.
SBU agents raided his residence and prosecutors told the court to put him under house arrest pending the investigation.
The Ukrainian government and the agency that oversees it notified the monks that they were terminating the lease and they had until Wednesday to leave.
Pavel and his fellow clergymen told worshipers that the monks would not leave until the UOC filed a lawsuit in a Kyiv court to stop the eviction.
He rejected the security service's claim that he condoned Russia's invasion during a hearing on Saturday. Prosecutors asked to have him put under house arrest while an investigation is ongoing. The hearing was adjourned until Monday after the metropolitan said he was not feeling well.
The Ukrainian government has cracked down on the Ukrainian Orthodox Church over its historic ties to the Russian Orthodox Church whose leader, Patriarch Kirill, has supported Russian President Vladimir Putin.
The Ukrainian Orthodox Church denounced the Russian invasion from the beginning and insists that it is loyal to Ukraine. The church declared its independence from Moscow.
Ukrainian security agencies have claimed that some in the UOC have close ties with Moscow.