Russia justifies its vicious and illegal war on Ukraine at home and abroad in religious terms, alleging that it is fighting for the “Russian World” (Russkiye Mir) in a God-ordained “Holy War.” The goal of this war, which began in 2014 with the occupation of Crimea, is that Ukraine, Belarus, and other countries with Russian-speaking minorities submit their territories to Russian spiritual, military, and governmental leadership. Russian propaganda seeks to convince people that it is the last bastion of Christianity. Because it is safeguarding family values and the true Christian faith, Russia had to invade Ukraine, overthrow its government, and annex its territory to prevent it from being controlled by the ungodly and decadent “West” and experiencing the “onslaught of globalism.” Indeed, the Russian Orthodox Church-Moscow Patriarchate (ROC-MP) has proclaimed that Russian soldiers instantly will be absolved of their sins and admitted to heaven if they fall in this battle, a position eerily reminiscent to the claims of another absolutistic religious group, ISIS, that the rest of the Christian world condemned as heretical.
In Russia’s view, Ukraine committed cardinal sins by rejecting its leadership during the Maidan Revolution’s quest for democracy in 2014 and attaining independence from the ROC-MP (the source of the Russian World concept) for the Orthodox Church of Ukraine in January 2019. By Spring 2024, Russia’s hegemonic position is clear: “Ukrainians” do not exist: they are all subgroups of the Russian ethnicity. Those who reject this point of view must be re-educated (a well-known euphemism for being brain washed or coerced).[1] The Russian World doctrine has been condemned by many Orthodox and non-Orthodox theologians as heresy.[2]
Abducted women and girls: Russia’s treatment of Ukrainian women and children gives the lie to its claims to be a Christian nation. Russia has deployed hideous and distinctly non-Christian tactics, many of which target women and children. At the outset of its full-scale invasion in February 2022, it countenanced and even encouraged its soldiers to rape women and children as a tool of war. The fate of the many women and girls the Russian invaders abducted for use as sex slaves generally is unknown, and those rescued have suffered terrible physical, spiritual, and psychological trauma.
Abducted children: Russian troops have abducted an estimated hundreds of thousands of Ukrainian children for “protection.” The children are told that no one in Ukraine cares about them and that they must accept that they are now Russian, sing the Russian national anthem, and proclaim their loyalty to a country that is devastating their homeland. Abducted children and children still living on the territory of occupied Ukraine have been forced to become Russian patriots and train for war against their own countrymen and women. Children as young as 14 are reportedly being sent to the front as conscripts.
Mykola Kubela, the former Ukrainian Children’s Ombudsman, founded Save Ukraine to repatriate these children. Along with the Ukrainian government, Save Ukraine has succeeded in repatriating a small number of those taken: fewer than 400 in total.[3] Ukrainian mothers must brave possible arrest and other risks to travel to Russia and bring home their abducted children.[4] Ukraine’s Ombudsman Dmytro Lubinets has estimated that that at this rate, it will take 55 years for these children to be returned.
These abductions led the International Criminal Court in March 2023 to issue arrest warrants for both Russia’s President, Vladimir Putin, and its Children’s Ombudsman, Maria Lvova-Belova. She openly had bragged about adopting a Ukrainian child who was not legally available for adoption under either Ukrainian or Russian law.[5]
Targeting civilians and civilian objects: The ICC in June 2024 also issued arrest warrants for Russia’s military leaders, Sergei Shoigu and Valery Gerasimov, for the international crimes of directing attacks at civilian objects and causing excessive incidental harm to civilians.[6]
For instance, Russia deliberately has targeted maternity hospitals (most notably in Mariupol as depicted in the harrowing film 20 Days in Mariupol) and buildings sheltering women and children. It recently destroyed the largest children’s hospital in Ukraine, killing patients and medical staff, while simultaneously destroying a maternity hospital also in Kyiv.[7] One observer commented “the message is genocide.”
Over 8 million women and girls will need humanitarian assistance in 2024,[8] with over 8,000 women and girls having been killed or injured in the war thus far.8 With their fathers, husbands, and grown sons dead or enlisted in Ukraine’s military, Ukrainian women are forced to support themselves and their children in war time. Many have experienced the deaths or injuries of relatives or themselves suffer from war related handicaps. While women serve in the military, many also fled the country early in the war or were internally displaced, losing homes, possessions, and any sense of security. We all have seen photos of Russian soldiers driving back to Russia with washing machines and televisions as booty. Image how Ukrainian women feel when they are finally able to return home, only to find their homes destroyed or looted, and their workplaces, residential areas, and schools and hospitals decimated.
The numbers tell a grim story. 56% of the estimated 3.7 million internally displaced people in Ukraine are women and girls, an estimated 90% of the 8 million estimated externally displaced Ukrainians are women and children because men 18-60 may not leave due to the war.[9] 72% of those registered as unemployed are women, and the UN estimates that 56% of the 14.6 Ukrainians in need of humanitarian assistance are female.[10]
Religious freedom violations: Russian authorities commit religious freedom violations in occupied Ukraine to erase all groups, and organizations that support these groups, perceived as disloyal to Moscow and the ROC-MP. No Catholic or free Orthodox Church of Ukraine churches and only a handful of Protestant churches remain. Most Jewish synagogues are closed and Muslim religious organizations in Crimea have been repressed. Pastors and other leaders have been arrested, tortured, and either killed or expelled from the occupied territories. Parishioners have witnessed these arrests and most have had their identity documents recorded so that the occupiers know who they are. Once vibrant churches and other religious organizations numbering in the thousands no longer can provide spiritual, humanitarian, and medical aid to local communities, with all sectors of society, but especially the most vulnerable, profoundly impacted. Being part of a religious community provided women and children with much support, including helping care for elderly relatives, caring for children while they worked, and rebuilding their war-shattered lives. With those communities extinguished or driven underground, many experience a deep sense of loss and are overwhelmed by their circumstances.
Religious organizations, local and international, seek to provide help even in war zones, but they simply cannot access those most in need. Exiled pastors seek to help their flocks with online, clandestine church services and counseling, but they reach only a small percentage. They continue to travel to occupied areas but receive little of the financial assistance available to secular NGOs due to onerous financial reporting requirements. For example, every bag of rice purchased must be justified in terms of alternative sources of supply—in a war zone! Groups working in nearby nations with large numbers of Ukrainian refugees report an overwhelming need for services, including psychological and spiritual counseling. Female refugees and children are at grave risk of sex trafficking and other forms of exploitation.
What can be done?
- The United States and other governments supporting Ukraine should include religious organizations and faith-based NGOs in their provision of humanitarian aid and other assistance. Often these smaller, more nimble groups can travel into occupation zones and reach those most in need. Waiving some of the most onerous government contracting requirements would go a long way to help these groups be productive partners in supporting needy Ukrainian women and children.
- In addition to the ICC indictments of President Putin and Children’s Ombudsman Lvova-Belova and its top military officials, the UN and Western governments should do all in their power to press Russia to release abducted Ukrainian children and return them to the care of Ukrainian authorities and their families. Sanctions, seizure of their assets outside Russia, and travel bans on all involved, not just top officials, are good places to start. Religious persecution should be specifically mentioned as a war crime and basis for US sanctions.
- Nations supporting Ukraine should make Russia’s terrible repression of religious communities in occupied Ukraine a topic that is discussed and condemned internationally and even a basis for sanctions against individual perpetrators. The ROC-MP is an active propagandist for Russia’s war, even having the audacity to claim that Ukraine persecutes Christians because it seeks to restrain ROC-MP anti-state activity inside Ukraine through its Ukrainian subsidiary.
- The need for specialized programs to assist Ukrainian women and children both within and outside Ukraine with shelter, jobs, medical and psychological care should be supported and expedited, particularly as the war rages on and most men serving in a military or governmental capacity are separated from their families.
Lauren Homer is the President of Law and Liberty Trust.
