A new report calls for the Russian Federation to be designated a state sponsor of terrorism, finding that Russia is weaponizing Orthodox Christianity as part of a genocidal attack on Ukraine -- persecuting Catholics, other Christians and other faith communities in the besieged nation.
Mission Eurasia, a Tennessee-based ministry that trains Christian missionaries and leaders in 13 nations spanning Europe, Asia and Israel, released its findings Feb. 4 in "Faith Under Russian Terror: Analysis of the Religious Situation in Ukraine."
The 52-page report, available at missioneurasia.org, was produced by Mykhailo Brytsyn, director of Mission Eurasia's Religious Freedom Initiative, and Maksym Vasin, director of international advocacy and research at the Kyiv-based Institute for Religious Freedom.
The publication is a sequel to the organization's 2023 release, "Faith Under Fire," which documented the state of religious freedom in the Russian-occupied territories of Ukraine from February 2022 to mid-2023.
That report and Mission Eurasia's latest release add to an expanding body of evidence documenting the Russian state's use of detention, torture, imprisonment and execution -- as well as bans against specific faiths and seizure of houses of worship -- to suppress religious practice in occupied areas of Ukraine, and to force Christians of various denominations to convert to Russian Orthodoxy.
The Mission Eurasia data was drawn from some 50 in-person interviews, conducted from August 2023 to December 2024, with clergy and representatives of all Christian denominations in Ukraine, including Orthodox Christians, Greek and Roman Catholics, and Protestants from various faith traditions, among them Baptist, evangelical, Pentecostal and Mennonite.
The report's authors said some sources were anonymized to protect their safety and that of fellow believers and family members living under Russian occupation.
The Mission Eurasia report noted that Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine, launched Feb. 24, 2022, continued attacks initiated in 2014. Under longtime leader Vladimir Putin, Russia has sought to reabsorb Ukraine -- which gained its independence from the former Soviet Union in 1991 -- while continuing historical campaigns by Russia under tsarist, communist and post-communist regimes to erase Ukrainian identity and "russify" Ukrainians.
Russia's systematic attacks on Ukraine -- which have routinely targeted civilians and civilian structures, in violation of international humanitarian law -- have been declared a genocide in two joint reports by the New Lines Institute and the Raoul Wallenberg Center for Human Rights.
The Mission Eurasia report -- consistent with data from several human rights monitoring groups and from Ukraine's government -- said Russian forces have so far damaged or destroyed several hundred religious sites in Ukraine, with the Institute for Religious Freedom citing a total of at least 650.
During June 2023 and September 2024 tours of Ukraine, OSV News visited several churches that had sustained damage from direct attacks by Russian forces.
Mission Eurasia noted that "at least 47 Ukrainian religious leaders have been killed as a result of Russia’s full-scale aggression."
Others, said the report, have been subjected to imprisonment and torture, including Ukrainian Greek Catholic priests Father Ivan Levitsky and Father Bohdan Geleta, who in November 2022 were seized by Russian forces from their parish, Church of the Nativity of the Most Holy Theotokos in Berdyansk. After 18 months in Russian captivity, the priests -- having lost significant amounts of weight, and with their heads shaved -- were released as part of a June 2024 prisoner exchange.
In a post-release interview with the UGCC's Zhyve television station, Father Geleta said he and Father Levitsky had been subjected to both psychological and physical torture at the hands of Russian forces.
Fellow UGCC priest Father Oleksandr Bohomaz, forcibly "deported" in December 2022 from the Russian-occupied Ukrainian of Melitopol, was also quoted in the Mission Eurasia report. The priest noted that while ministering under Russian occupation, "Russian security forces … pressured me to disclose the content of confessions. … I made it clear to them that confession is a sacred mystery. But they didn't care."
That same month, Russian officials formally banned the UGCC, the Knights of Columbus and Caritas in occupied areas of Ukraine.
The Mission Eurasia report also highlighted Russian abuses of religious freedom for Ukraine's children.
UNICEF, the United Nations' relief agency for children, reported in May 2024 that close to 2,000 children had been killed in Ukraine since the start of Russia's full-scale invasion, with "the true number … likely much higher."
The Mission Eurasia report said that following Russia's July 2024 attack on the Okhmatdyt children's hospital in Kyiv, political commentator Andrey Perla justified the carnage, telling Russian Orthodox television channel Tsargrad that the missile strike "wasn't a mistake" since Ukrainians cannot be considered human: "Our (Russian) missiles do not kill humans. Not a single human. Over there (in Ukraine), there are no humans," Russian commentator stated.
At least 19,546 Ukrainian children have been abducted by Russia, with Russia itself claiming to have taken more than 700,000 Ukrainian children, who are forced to renounce their Ukrainian identity under reeducation and "russification" programs, after which many are drafted into Russian military service.
Russian forces have eliminated or severely limited access to children's catechetical materials, the report said, and have shut down children's religious ministries by raiding and destroying houses of worship while repressing ministry leaders.
Under Russian occupation, public schools foster "militaristic ideology infused with elements of Russian chauvinism," and children "are immersed in an atmosphere of hatred toward non-Orthodox religious minorities and everything Ukrainian," said the report.
The Mission Eurasia report also examined Ukraine's initiatives to prevent Russia's weaponization of Orthodoxy, noting that the Ukrainian Orthodox Church -- distinct from the autocephalous Orthodox Church of Ukraine -- has "mirrored" Kremlin and Russian Orthodox narratives in Ukraine.
At the same time, the Mission Eurasia report cited "several shortcomings" in Ukraine's August 2024 law banning the ROC in Ukraine and prohibiting Ukrainian religious organizations affiliated with Russian religious centers. While noting Ukraine's government has "strong arguments to justify its legitimate aim of intervening in the religious sphere during martial law and amid an existential threat to Ukraine … debates continue regarding adherence to the principle of proportionality" in the law as written.
Based on its findings, Mission Eurasia proposed a number of recommendations, specifically calling for the designation of the Russian Federation as a state sponsor of terrorism and increased international pressure to end its aggression. In addition, Mission Eurasia urged continued documentation of Russia's war crimes against faith-based leaders and communities, along with humanitarian, psychological and other aid to be coordinated via religious networks throughout Ukraine.
