The work of Andrii Ivanets on the support of religious organizations of the Russian Federation for the genocidal war in Ukraine is presented

On Wednesday, May 17, the Ukrainian Crisis Media Center presented the research of Andrii Ivanets, a leading researcher of the National Museum of the Holodomor-Genocide, “Support by “traditional” religious organizations of the Russian Federation for Russia’s aggressive and genocidal war against Ukraine,” which was recently published.

The presented study analyzes the attitude of “traditional” Russian religious organizations to Russia’s genocidal and aggressive war against Ukraine, which they demonstrated during the phase of large-scale aggression from February 2022 to the beginning of 2023. In the Russian Federation, Orthodoxy is one of the “traditional” religions, Islam, Buddhism and Judaism. The vast majority of them, as the author emphasizes, are involved in the process of justifying the need for war against Ukraine, its sacralization, concealment of Russia’s aggressive actions and its commission of other grave crimes, and the creation of prerequisites for the genocide of the Ukrainian nation.

“Russia seeks to use all opportunities to conquer Ukraine and destroy the Ukrainian state. Since Ukrainians and Russians have a fairly high level of religiosity among the peoples of Europe, the aggressor state seeks to use religion as one of the tools of expansion, the author of the work, Andrii Ivanets, emphasized during the presentation. – At the same time, there is a difference in the degree of involvement of “traditional” religious organizations in supporting the war against Ukraine, and we even have a case of its condemnation by the leader of the Buddhists of Kalmykia. It is important to find mechanisms that would stop or minimize Russia’s instrumental use of religion for criminal purposes. Therefore, in the study, civilized states and international organizations, religious associations and authorities are offered some measures to respond to the complicity of religious organizations of Russia in the aggressive war against Ukraine and the genocide of the Ukrainian nation.”

The reviewer of the publication, Ihor Kozlovsky, president of the Centre for Religious Studies and International Spiritual Relations and senior researcher at the Department of Religious Studies, H.S. Skovoroda Institute of Philosophy, emphasized that “this is a large-scale and important study because it is impossible to understand the nature of rashism without the religious factor.” “During the formation of Putinism and the ideology of rashism in general, religion actually becomes part of the ideological machine of the Russian state as an empire,” he noted.

Head of the Holodomor History and Mass Man-made Famines Department of the Holodomor Museum, Dmytro Bily, who is also a reviewer of the study, drew historical parallels with how the Russian state used religion for its own benefit over the centuries and emphasized that “a dictatorship cannot exist if religion is not under its control”.

You can learn about the research on our website by following the link