Russia’s War On Faith: The Toll On Ukraine’s Religious Communities

2 hours ago 1

Russia Carried Out Massive Missile And Drone Attacks On Kyiv At Night

On June 15, Russia launched a missile and drone strike across Ukraine. One of the places hit during the attack was the UNESCO World Heritage site-listed Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra, an Orthodox Christian monastery complex built in the 11th century and one of Ukraine’s most important religious sites. Reuters reported that the roof of the Dormition Cathedral at the Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra had received extensive damage from the attack.

Russia has “demonstrated the full brutality of its actions,” French Foreign Minister Jean-Noël Barrot said ahead of the Foreign Affairs Council on June 15. “For us French, this would be equivalent to bombing Notre-Dame or the Basilica of Saint-Denis.”

Various religious leaders in Ukraine commented on the attack as well. Metropolitan Epiphanius, who is the Head of the Orthodox Church of Ukraine, wrote on X that the attack on the Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra was “another Russian crime against humanity, against history, and against Christianity.” Meanwhile, Chief Rabbi of Ukraine Moshe Azman posted a photo on X of the Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra on fire, stating that “Russian missiles struck the Kyiv Pechersk Lavra, one of Ukraine’s most sacred religious sites and a UNESCO World Heritage site.” Additionally, Sheikh Murat Suleimanov, Mufti of the Religious Administration of Muslims of Ukraine, posted a video on his Facebook page condemning the Russian attack on the Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra.

This is not the first time Russian missile and drone attacks have damaged a religious or cultural site in Ukraine. Since the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, UNESCO has conducted damage assessments of cultural properties across Ukraine. The organization found that 536 cultural sites have been damaged during the war between February 2022 and June 2026. This includes religious sites, historical locations, museums, monuments, and libraries. The United Nations also noted in a report that the Russian Federation has “targeted individuals, houses and buildings, humanitarian distribution points, and critical energy infrastructure servicing civilians” during the war.

“The Russian invasion has explicit genocidal intent. The goal is to eliminate Ukraine as a state, and the Ukrainian people as a nation,” Metropolitan Borys Gudziak, Archbishop of Philadelphia and Metropolitan for Ukrainian Catholics in the United States of America, told me in an interview. “Since faith, church life, and religious engagement are an important part of the matrix of a society, as in previous centuries, the Russians are explicitly targeting religious groups.”

A UN report published on June 15 found that the latest wave of Russian missile strikes and drone attacks on Ukraine has added to the “ongoing trend of increased harm to civilians in Ukraine.” The report added that May 2026 “saw the highest monthly number of civilian casualties in four years” since Russia’s full-scale invasion began in February 2022. The report concluded that civilian infrastructure, civilian areas, and cultural heritage sites must be safeguarded.

Kyiv is not the only Ukrainian city that has seen sacred sites and cultural areas damaged or destroyed during Russia’s full-scale invasion. A report published by the Atlantic Council on June 16 found that the Kharkiv Art Museum and the Organ and Chamber Music Hall in Dnipro are just two of the over 500 cultural sites that have been subjected to Russian attacks during the war.

As for religious sites and places of worship, these areas have taken significant damage in southern and eastern Ukraine, particularly in the Russian-occupied regions. Throughout Russia’s full-scale invasion, churches, monasteries, mosques, synagogues, prayer houses, cemeteries, and religious schools have been damaged or destroyed. Religious leaders and members of the clergy have also been targeted by Russian soldiers.

“Ukrainian officials have reported 67 clergy members killed since the full-scale invasion,” Archbishop Daniel Zelinsky of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the United States of America told me in an interview. “Religious communities of many traditions in Ukraine – Orthodox, Catholic, Protestant, Jewish, and Muslim – have suffered grave violations. This includes the killing, detention, torture, intimidation, and forced disappearance of clergy and lay believers.”

During our discussion, Archbishop Zelinsky provided examples of how the Russians have targeted various religious groups in Ukraine during the full-scale invasion. In eastern Ukraine, Orthodox parishes that are not part of the Russian Orthodox faith have been damaged or destroyed due to shelling from Russian missiles. Additionally, Protestant and Catholic clergy have been imprisoned or tortured. Meanwhile, Jewish sites and Holocaust memorial spaces have been damaged in Ukraine, such as Babi Yar. Finally, in Russian-occupied Crimea, Crimean Tatars and Muslims have been persecuted by the Russians. Most recently, in May, the European Court of Human Rights ruled that the Russian Federation must compensate Crimean Tatars who have been arrested and prosecuted for peacefully protesting against Russia.

“Russia targets religious life in Ukraine because faith communities preserve memory, identity, truth, and moral resistance,” Archbishop Zelinsky told me. “Churches, synagogues, mosques, monasteries, and clergy are not only places and persons of prayer; they are witnesses to the dignity of the human person and to the freedom of conscience. In occupied territories, Russian authorities have repeatedly used repression of religion to impose political control, weaken Ukrainian identity, and force communities into structures loyal to Moscow. From an Orthodox Christian moral perspective, this war is not only an attack on territory; it is an attack on the God-given dignity of the human person. When sacred places are bombed, when clergy are silenced, when believers are tortured, when religious freedom is crushed, the aggressor attempts to extinguish the living conscience of a nation. Yet the Church teaches that no empire, ideology, or military power can destroy the image of God in humanity.”

This pattern of religious persecution is not new. During the Soviet period, Russian authorities closed places of worship, such as churches, in Ukraine. Additionally, religious community leaders were imprisoned or exiled. People of faith gathered in secrecy for services, and religion was outlawed. While the Soviet Union dissolved in 1991, religious persecution in Ukraine has continued during Russia’s full-scale invasion since 2022.

“In the past centuries, as is so today, everywhere where there is Russian occupation, the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church is eliminated as a visible community,” Metropolitan Gudziak told me. “It is decimated and driven into a catacomb experience. That is happening throughout Russian-occupied Ukraine to Catholics. Representatives of the Orthodox Church of Ukraine have been persecuted. Muslims in Crimea, particularly leaders and activists, have disappeared, been incarcerated, and tortured. Jewish monuments have been destroyed.”

These religious sites and sacred areas throughout Ukraine have not been used by the Ukrainian Armed Forces or Ukrainian volunteer battalions as staging grounds to fight against Russian forces. Why, then, are the Russians targeting these places of worship?

“The reason Russia targets religious sites and people of faith is not accidental,” Metropolitan Antony of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the United States of America and the Diaspora told me in an interview. “Religion is part of Ukraine’s national identity and civil society. Independent churches, synagogues, and mosques represent loyalties outside Moscow’s control. By attacking clergy and sacred places, Russia is attacking the memory, dignity, and identity of the Ukrainian people. What also needs to be addressed is that religious persecution in Ukraine is not separate from the broader colonial project. Russia is not only trying to seize land. It is trying to decide who Ukrainians are allowed to be, what history they are allowed to claim, what language they may speak, and even how they may worship. That is why the destruction of religious life in Ukraine must be understood as part of Russia’s larger campaign of cultural and national erasure.”

Metropolitan Gudziak added to this point as well. During our discussion, he told me that by targeting religious sites and sacred areas, the Russians aim to break the will of the Ukrainian people. “The Russian goal is to destroy, devastate, and demoralize,” Metropolitan Gudziak said. “In other words, to induce terror.”

Despite the increase in Russian missile and drone attacks on non-military targets in Ukraine in 2026, as reported by the UN this month, Ukrainian morale has not changed. According to a survey published by the International Republican Institute in March, 73% of Ukrainians across the country said that they see the future of Ukraine as rather promising. Additionally, 82% of Ukrainians who participated in the survey nationwide said that they believe Ukraine will win the war. This implies that, despite the hardships Ukrainians have endured during the ongoing Russian invasion, Ukrainian morale remains high. It also suggests that Ukrainian citizens, regardless of their ethnicity, cultural background, or religion, are unified.

Now, with the Russian full-scale invasion of Ukraine in its fifth year, no one is certain when the war will end. The attack on the Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra is the latest incident where the Russians have struck a religious site in Ukraine, and with no sign of an end to the war, it may not be the last time a UNESCO site is damaged during the continued fighting. Nonetheless, despite the tragedies that have occurred, Ukrainian religious communities have come together in solidarity as they protest Russia’s war.

When the full-scale invasion of Ukraine began in February 2022, Russian President Vladimir Putin claimed that Russian forces were coming to save ethnic Russians and Russian-speakers in Ukraine. The Russian president also anticipated a quick, decisive victory. But more than four years later, Putin has managed to unite all of Ukraine’s ethnic, cultural, and religious groups against Russia, and Ukrainian spirits remain unbroken.

“The church and religious communities, Christian, Jewish, and Muslim, are in solidarity and stand together as they did, issuing consensus statements on social issues, most recently on the bombing of the Kyiv Monastery," Metropolitan Gudziak concluded in our interview. “God’s truth will prevail. No effort to destroy the house of God will succeed.”

Read Entire Article