Russian and Ukrainian Orthodox Churches--different but the same

"Look, major saints of the Slavic Orthodox Church — and I’m talking about Ukrainian Russian Orthodox Church and Serbian, what have you — a lot of them are of Ukrainian descent. Ukraine has produced the fathers of Orthodox Church that have served in Russia, Serbia, Moldova, Romania, in other parts of the world, including Middle East and in Jerusalem. Ukrainians have contributed to the fabric — into the mosaic — of the spiritual entity of who we are as Orthodox Christians.

We are two distinct groups of people, Russians and Ukrainians. We’re people of one faith — we’re Christians. But our cultural background makes us different. Because of the impact that Western society has had on Ukraine, people the Western Ukraine, and in general in Ukraine, are open to their whole idea of self entities, identifying themselves as Christians and asking themselves valid question, “Why am I a Christian? Why am I Orthodox? Why am I doing the ritual I’m doing? Why am I living the way I live?”

In the northern part, or the northern neighbor, the Russian Federation, they would often use the teachings of the saints of the church and imply that you are not worthy of anything as a person, as a child of God, to accomplish anything in order to fully and truly approach him with your worthiness. Two distinct approaches to the sanctity of human life."  https://religionnews.com/2022/02/25/a-religious-politician-head-of-ukrainian-orthodox-church-of-the-usa-slams-patriarch-kirill-putin/