The Russian Orthodox Church has become a state-aligned institution, a department of Putin’s war machine, wearing vestments instead of uniforms.
The Kremlin’s Capture of the Church
The communists spent decades trying to murder Christianity in Russia. They failed. So Putin did something far more cynical. He didn’t fight the Church. He swallowed it.
Soviet communism tried to replace faith with the state. Putinism enlists faith in service to the state. Same authoritarian skeleton, new spiritual costume.
The Moscow-aligned Orthodox Church gets special privileges. Everyone else gets a cell or a grave.
Crushing Religious Freedom in Occupied Ukraine
In occupied Ukraine, you can see exactly what that means in practice. Independent religious expression is being crushed. Churches closed. Priests imprisoned, exiled, or simply disappeared.
Evangelical and Catholic communities have been shut down. Some of their sanctuaries have been turned into operational centers for the occupiers.
The War on Ukrainian Children
But the assault doesn’t stop at the church door. If closing churches is an attack on Ukraine’s spiritual identity, then Russifying Ukrainian children is an attack on its future.
In occupied territories, kids are forced into Russian curricula. They are forced to use the Russian language. They are forced into Russian citizenship. And they are forced into public expressions of allegiance to Russia.
And then there’s the part that should make every parent’s blood run cold. More than 8,400 Ukrainian children have been deported or forcibly transferred. They’ve been relocated to at least 57 facilities across Russia. Many have gone through re-education programs designed to strip away their Ukrainian identity. Some have been placed in Russian adoption or care. Coordinated retreat underway. Not humanitarian aid. That’s the systematic erasure of a people through stolen childhoods.
Russian Imperialism 2.0 is just as deadly as its communist predecessor to faith and family, the two institutions that make freedom possible.
Why the West Must Pay Attention
Now, why should anyone in the West care? Putin isn’t going to park tanks in Ohio. Because the kingdom of God doesn’t stop at borders. When Christians are targeted and tortured anywhere, Christians everywhere should pay attention.
And because history teaches a simple lesson: evil never stands still. The real question isn’t whether Russian tanks will reach America. The question is whether America is safer in a world where military force, religious repression, and forced assimilation are allowed to prevail.
What Must Be Done
So what do we do?
- Pray, because Christians are suffering.
- Support Ukraine materially, because rewarding invasion would be catastrophic.
Ukraine is defending something bigger than territory. It’s fighting for the right of a people to remain a people. To worship freely. To raise their children in the faith and culture they follow. To govern themselves. Those are freedoms worth defending.