Patriarch of Moscow and all Russia Kirill, who formally serves as the head of the Russian Orthodox Church and informally, but rather apparently, as the puppet of Putin’s regime, has openly been supporting the Russian invasion of Ukraine numerous times. Now the Czech Republic decided to put him on their naughty list and has slapped him with sanctions.

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With his name on the Czech list of sanctioned individuals and entities, Kirill cannot conduct any financial operations using Czech intermediaries, and any assets he has in the country are now frozen.

Czech FM Jan Lipavský noted that the Patriarch has already been sanctioned by the U.K., Canada, Ukraine, and Lithuania.

The sanctions have been applied under the provision of the so-called Magnitsky Act, which went into effect at the start of the year.

The Magnitsky Act allows for applying sanctions on the country level against individuals and entities who, just like Kirill, are not sanctioned by the EU. Sanctions are applied at the suggestion of the foreign ministry, and the application is decided by the cabinet.

EU-wide sanctions are prioritized, but the Magnitsky Act allows for the application of wider sanctions than those decided by Brussels.

CTK news agency reports that the decision to apply the sanctions against Kirill was made after Hungary opposed him being sanctioned by the EU as a whole.