Evidence of Russian crimes against religious communities of Ukraine presented at the OSCE conference in Warsaw

On Wednesday September 28, 2022, as part of the Warsaw Human Dimension Conference, a panel discussion was held on the topic: “Attacks on religious freedom during the armed aggression of Russia against Ukraine.”

Background:

Since 2014 the Russian aggression against Ukraine was accompanied by abductions, tortures, and extrajudicial executions of clergymen and believers. Since the full-scale invasion on February 24, 2022, the Russian attacks on religious freedom in Ukraine have become even crueler.

If previously, the Russian invaders only threatened to kill priests, now religious leaders are being killed and tortured – again, but on a scale far worse than in 2014. If previously, Russian occupational authorities expelled Ukrainian believers from their churches and prayer houses, now Russia is destroying the spiritual heritage of Ukraine with bombs and missile strikes without justification by military necessity. At least 240 religious buildings and sacred places have already been damaged due to the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

Russian media and religious leaders, like Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and All Russia, are justifying the war against Ukraine with propaganda about the supposed protection of Orthodox believers of the Moscow Patriarchate and Russian speakers. Instead, Russian military aircraft and artillery are destroying both houses of worship and believers, regardless of language, denomination, and ethnicity.

This panel focus on the Russian crimes against religious actors and places of worship during the war against Ukraine, and the Russian religious persecution on the occupied territories of Ukraine, including Crimea.

This year, this event was organized by the Polish OSCE Chairmanship under the leadership of Mr. Zbigniew Rau, Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Poland.

Poland took over the chairmanship of the OSCE at a time when its member states are facing numerous challenges to peace and security. The Russian armed aggression against Ukraine became the main challenge. Poland is working to establish the principles of international law and a strong commitment to the existing OSCE tools and methods.

Institute for Religious Freedom (IRF) is an NGO defending human rights, founded in 2001 in Kyiv, Ukraine. IRF operates as an independent NGO through donations and grants.

The IRF’s effectiveness is driven by a team with over 20 years of experience in human rights advocacy and the facilitation of inter-faith dialogue. The success of our projects is ensured by a network of highly specialized lawyers, experts, scholars, and volunteers with whom we collaborate in various fields.

IRF’s primary goals are to protect and promote religious freedom and other related human rights; facilitate inter-faith dialogue and cooperation; develop church-state cooperation; strengthen democratic foundations and civil society in Ukraine.

At the event, the IRF made public evidence of Russian war crimes. Diplomats, experts, journalists, and public figures attended the event.

The full text of the report is available in pdf format in English. You can download the study summary in English here.

Russian troops have been persecuting Ukrainian religious leaders in the occupied territories and systematically destroying religious objects in Ukraine: shelling and destruction of churches, prayer houses, synagogues, mosques and other religious buildings, including architectural monuments were recorded. In addition, there are cases of abduction and murder of religious leaders of various denominations.

The Russian Orthodox Church actively supports the Russian military invasion of Ukraine. In particular, Moscow Patriarch Kirill (Gundyaev) publicly blessed the Russian army for the war against Ukraine and disseminated false narratives of Russian propaganda about the alleged Western war against Russia.

Moreover, the ROC is the developer and chief propagandist of the quasi-religious concept of the “Russian world” – a neo-imperial project that became the ideological basis of russia’s aggression against Ukraine. This essentially chauvinistic ideology denies the existence of the Ukrainian people as a separate nation, is based on distorted theology, rewriting the history of Kyivan Rus and Orthodoxy in Ukraine in favor of Moscow, spreads narratives of a united people (Russian, Ukrainian, Belarusian) and seeks to expand Russia, including the ROC, to all russian-speaking regions of the world, regardless of state borders.

Moderator: Oleksandra Drik, Center for Civil Liberties

Speakers:

Archbishop Yevstratiy (Zoria), the Orthodox Church of Ukraine

Bishop Vitalii Kryvytskyi, the Roman Catholic Church in Ukraine, Ordinary of Kyiv-Zhytomyr

Pastor Anatoliy Kozachok, the Ukrainian Pentecostal Church, Deputy Senior Bishop

Rt. Rev. Oleksa Petriv, the Ukrainian Greek-Catholic Church, Mitered archpriest

Oleksandr Zaiets, the Institute for Religious Freedom, Board Chairman

Maksym Vasin, the Institute for Religious Freedom, Executive Director

Oleksandr Zaiets, Board Chairman of the Institute for Religious Freedom noted “in the report “Russian attacks on religious freedom in Ukraine, we have been made public the facts of targeted shelling, vandalism and looting of religious buildings, and attacks on religious figures, including torture and deliberate suffering, which were committed by the Russian military in Ukraine since February 24, documented by the Institute for Religious Freedom. And, unfortunately, the scale of Russian war crimes is only growing with every day of the continuation of Russia’s armed aggression against Ukraine“.

Anatoly Kozachok, Deputy senior bishop of the Ukrainian Pentecostal Church add “evangelical churches, in particular the Pentecostal Church, have suffered a lot from the Russian invaders not only now, but since 2014. Then, they killed four servants in Slovyansk, Donetsk region. Now Russian soldiers are attacking evangelical Christians even more, considering them spies or supporters of the “wrong” faith, or accusing them of supporting the Ukrainian army“.

The speakers agree that our shared goal is to hold Russia and anyone responsible for war crimes committed in Ukraine accountable and to minimize further Russian attacks on religious freedom in Ukraine.

The event ended with a series of Q&A, during which Ukrainian religious figures and co-authors of the report shared their expert assessments of the events in Ukraine.