The Kremlin will likely intensify existing information operations accusing Ukraine’s government of oppressing religious liberty in Ukraine.
That’s according to the Institute for the Study of War, a US-based think tank.
It is noted that a prominent Pro-Russian Telegram Channel made a post to its 1.5 million subscribers claiming that Ukraine’s State Security Service (SBU) raided Russian Orthodox churches in nine Ukrainian regions and accusing the SBU of conducting arbitrary “terror” searches to detain Russian Orthodox clergy.
“This narrative contains elements of several observed Russian information operations designed to falsely portray Ukraine as oppressing Russian religious minorities,” the report reads.
ISW stresses the fact that Ukraine is not attacking religious liberty or Eastern Orthodoxy.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky signed a decree to impose personal sanctions against representatives of religious organizations associated with the Russian government on December 2.
This decree targets Kremlin-linked elements of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church Moscow Patriarchate (UOC MP). The UOC MP is not an independent religious organization. The UOC MP is the Kremlin-controlled Russian Orthodox Church’s subordinate branch in Ukraine.
