Ukraine's security service on Tuesday said it carried out a raid on a historic Orthodox monastery in the capital Kyiv over suspected "activities" of Russian agents.

Located south of Kyiv's city centre, the 11th century Kyiv Pechersk Lavra is a UNESCO World Heritage site and seat of a branch of Ukraine's Orthodox Church that was formerly under Moscow's jurisdiction.

It cut ties with Russia soon after President Vladimir Putin invaded Ukraine. 

The SBU security service said in a statement that "counter-intelligence measures" were carried out as part of work to "counter the subversive activities of the Russian security services in Ukraine". 

The statement said Kyiv aimed to prevent the use of the site as a "centre of the 'Russian world'" and make sure that the premises were not used to hide "sabotage and intelligence groups" and to store weapons.

On Tuesday morning, a police car was parked outside the Lavra, its roof and glistening golden domes covered with snow, an AFP reporter saw.

Armed officers were seen carrying out ID checks and searching the bags of worshippers before letting them go inside.

A spokesman for the Russian Orthodox Church called the raid an "act of intimidation" against Ukrainian believers. 

"We pray for our fellow believers... who are becoming victims of lawlessness and we call on all sympathetic people to do everything possible to stop this persecution," Vladimir Legoyda said on social media.

Also on Tuesday, the SBU said in a separate statement that "security measures" were carried out at two monasteries and the local diocese in the region of Rivne in northwestern Ukraine.

Russia lost a large number of Ukrainian parishes in 2019, when a historic schism fuelled by the Kremlin's land grab of Crimea and backing of a separatist insurgency in eastern Ukraine led to the creation of the Kyiv Patriarchate of the Orthodox Church.