The Russian Orthodox Church is an integral element of Russia's hybrid strategy against Ukraine.
This was discussed during a press conference at UNIAN, where an analytical study titled "Religion as a Weapon. The Use of Religious Structures by Russia to Destroy Ukrainian Identity" was presented.
Pavlo Lysyanskyi, Doctor of Philosophy in Political Science and Director of the Institute of Strategic Studies and Security, noted that the study is dedicated to the situation of religious communities in temporarily occupied territories.
"Before 2014, everything was fine in Donbas. There were various communities, different faiths," he said, adding that as a result of the Russian occupation, the religious buildings themselves are being damaged.
Moreover, there are persecutions of people. "Even now, sentences are being handed down for people praying at home. They do not betray their faith," Lysyanskyi emphasized, highlighting that reports are written against these individuals, and they are arrested.
There is also a takeover of the religious space in the temporarily occupied territories. "They have artificially created a union of confessional religions and demonstrate this. They try to invite marginal journalists from other countries to the occupied territories... and show them that supposedly everything is fine with religion there," the director explained.
Lysyanskyi also noted that within the Russian Orthodox Church, there is a group called "Orthodox Knights." "So this is not just 'Yunarmiya.' 'Yunarmiya' is rather a cover for such projects," he said, explaining that in this organization, children are taught "Orthodox ideology and the use of weapons."
Among other things, Lysyanskyi emphasized that Russian priests are actively involved in military aggression against Ukraine. "They bless weapons, participate in combat actions," he noted.
Tortures and murders of Ukrainian clergy are also being documented. "And at the same time, they claim that there are persecutions in Ukraine based on religious grounds," said the director of the Institute of Strategic Studies and Security, adding that the liquidation of other confessions and the destruction of their temples is also taking place in the temporarily occupied territories.
Viktor Yelenskyi, head of the State Service of Ukraine for Ethnopolitics and Freedom of Conscience, stressed that the Russian Orthodox Church is "a direct participant in the war against Ukraine." "The Russian Orthodox Church has now become an absolute appendage of the Russian military machine," he said.
Yelenskyi emphasized that since the beginning of the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Russia has aimed at the complete destruction of religious freedom in our country. "Entire religious movements are completely banned in the occupied territories," he noted.
Furthermore, the head of the State Service noted that since the beginning of the full-scale invasion, as of early November this year, more than 700 places of worship have been completely destroyed or damaged in Ukraine.
Viktor Yelenskyi also emphasized that the Russian Orthodox Church "has certain control over the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, which is in unity with the Moscow Patriarchate." "This situation is abnormal," he stressed.
Halyna Zelenko, Doctor of Political Science, Deputy Director of the Institute of Political and Ethnonational Studies named after I.F. Kuras of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, and a corresponding member of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, noted that "in fact, the Russian Orthodox Church is acquiring the characteristics of an administrative-ideological link of this occupation regime."
Thus, Lysyanskyi concluded, in his opinion, the Russian Orthodox Church should be recognized as "responsible for participating in the hybrid war of the Russian Federation against Ukraine, initiate an international investigation into the militarization of children within the church, and accordingly develop a certain algorithm at the level of the Ukrainian state to counter this phenomenon."
