re: Latest Updates: Russia-Ukraine Conflict

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The greatest love affair the world has ever seen: a Russian tanker and his Kontakt-5 ERA.

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ISW is publishing a special edition campaign assessment today, April 9. This report discusses Russia’s religious repressions throughout occupied Ukraine since the start of the Russian full-scale invasion of Ukraine on February 24, 2022. Russia continues to weaponize religion in an effort to discredit Ukraine in the international arena and is using information operations about religion to advance military objectives despite itself committing gross violations of religious freedom in occupied Ukraine. Russia may use the upcoming Orthodox Easter holiday on April 16 in an effort to delay Ukrainian counteroffensives by calling for a ceasefire out of respect for the Orthodox religion despite the fact that Russia has shown no such respect for religion in areas its forces occupy. Russian religious persecutions are likely also part of an ongoing Russian cultural genocide and ethnic cleansing campaign aimed at extirpating the idea of an independent Ukrainian nationality or Ukrainian Orthodox Church.

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Russian occupation authorities are likely conducting a campaign of systematic religious persecution in occupied Ukraine.?Since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 Russian soldiers or occupations authorities have reportedly committed at least 76 acts of religious persecution in Ukraine.[1]?Russian authorities have closed, nationalized, or forcefully converted at least 26 places of worship to the Kremlin-controlled Russian Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate, killed or seized at least 29 clergy or religious leaders, and looted, desecrated, or deliberately destroyed at least 13 places of worship in occupied Ukraine

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Russian authorities systematically repress religious liberty in Russia as a matter of state policy.?Russian President Vladimir Putin ratified the “Yarovaya Law” in 2016 requiring all religious organizations and churches in Russia to be registered with the Russian government. The law bans “missionary activities,” broadly defined as preaching, praying, disseminating religious materials, and even answering questions about religion outside of officially state-approved sites under the pretense of precautions against “extremism” and “terrorism.”[5]?The Russian government refuses to register undesirable religious organizations it seeks to suppress

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Russia is exporting its state policies of systematic religious persecution to Russian-occupied Ukraine.?The Kremlin annexed Russian-controlled portions of Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson, and Zaporizhia oblasts on September 30, 2022, recognizing them as Russian federal subjects.[11]?Russian authorities enforce Russian federal laws – including the Yarovaya and other “anti-extremist” laws – in Russian-occupied Ukraine. Russia’s Prosecutor General’s Office declared four evangelical Christian groups from Latvia and Ukraine "undesirable" organizations in 2021, effectively banning the organizations in Russia.

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Russian occupation officials have been repressing Ukrainian religious communities in proxy republics in eastern Ukraine and in illegally occupied Crimea since 2014. Former Donetsk People’s Republic (DNR) Head Oleksandr Zakharchenko declared in May 2015 that Ukrainian Orthodox Church (OCU) members, Greek Catholics, and Evangelical Christians were “sectarians” within the DNR

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Moscow’s religious persecution campaign seeks to eradicate the Autocephalous (independent) Orthodox Church of Ukraine (OCU), which Moscow views as schismatic despite the decision by the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople in 2019 granting the Ukrainian Orthodox Church its independence from the Moscow Patriarchate.

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Russian occupation forces have also targeted other denominations that are distinctly culturally Ukrainian.?Russian forces captured two Ukrainian Greek Catholic priests in Berdyansk in November 2022, deporting them and effectively closing the main Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church in Melitopol in December 2022.

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Russia’s campaign also represses Ukraine's Protestant minority.?Available open-source reporting indicates that the most common victims of Russian religious persecution after Ukrainian Orthodox are Protestants, particularly evangelical Baptists.

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Witness reports indicate that Russian soldiers’ conduct towards Protestants in occupied Ukraine is brutal

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Russia’s systematic religious persecution supports a larger Russian campaign of cultural genocide against Ukraine.

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The Kremlin continues an information operation aimed at falsely portraying Russia as a religiously tolerant state while deliberately repressing religious freedoms in Ukraine.?Putin consistently presents Russia as the defender of traditional “Christian values” that also supports Orthodox, Islam, Judaism, and Buddhism religions.[37]?The Kremlin uses this information operation to accuse Ukraine of religious intolerance towards the Moscow Patriarchate and gain favor with religious communities worldwide. This information operation is at odds with Russian religious repressions on the ground. The Ukrainian Ministry of Reintegration’s indicated that Russians have reduced religious diversity by over 50 percent in Crimea, for example.[38]?The Kremlin continues to use long-standing false narratives that the Ukrainian government is oppressing religious liberties as a moral justification for its refusal to negotiate with Ukraine, likely in the hopes of turning international public opinion against Ukraine

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The UOC MP is not an independent religious organization but rather an extension of the Russian state and an instrument of Russian hybrid warfare....?Russia will continue to weaponize the UOC MP and religion to incite social tensions in Ukraine and influence battlefield realities.

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The Kremlin may call for a ceasefire around Orthodox Easter on April 16 as it did for Orthodox Christmas in January 2023.[47]?The Kremlin has selectively called for ceasefires around religious holidays to influence the situation on the frontlines. The Kremlin, for example, refused a ceasefire during Orthodox Easter of 2022” "in order not to give the Kyiv nationalists a break" during the Battle of Mariupol...Putin may call for a ceasefire to frame Ukraine as unaccommodating and unwilling to take the necessary steps towards negotiations.

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Available open-source reporting indicates that the most common victims of Russian religious persecution after Ukrainian Orthodox are Protestants, particularly evangelical Baptists.

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KYIV, Ukraine — The men in uniform could show up almost anywhere, any time.

They knock on civilians’ front doors and randomly stop them on street corners, handing out draft papers that can turn lives upside down.

Ukraine needs more soldiers — and fast.

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And the pace and aggression with which officials are now calling on civilian men to report to military offices — or sign up on their own — are sowing panic among those who feel unprepared or unwilling to serve.

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Previously, officials could only deliver draft papers to people’s homes, and some avoided the notices by staying at different addresses than where they are officially registered. But new rules have widened the scope of places where men can be stopped and questioned about their draft status.

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Oleksii Kruchukov, 46, a washing machine repairman waiting in line outside a recruitment office in Kyiv, said he was ordered to report there after police broke up a fight he got into on the street. He did not have any valid military exemptions and said he expected that the incident will result in him soon being sent to training, and then the front.

Oleksandr Kostiuk, 52, a road repairman who helped set up barriers against Russian forces around Kyiv last year, recently received his notice via his human resources department at work. He is willing to go to the front if he has to — but fears for his safety. “Now we understand what’s going on, so I’m more nervous,” he said.

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Thousands of other civilians are preempting such situations, instead signing up in droves for a force called the Offensive Guard — made up of eight new assault brigades.

Some are responding to the posters plastered across the country’s highways calling on civilians to join — and “turn your rage into a weapon.” The young men may have recently turned 18 and now qualify, or have cleared up family obligations that previously stopped them from joining. Others hope enlisting of their own accord will give them better training and prestige than if they were drafted.

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Since early February, more than 5,000 people have applied to join what was formerly known as the Azov Battalion, a controversial former right-wing militia that was incorporated into Ukraine’s national guard. Last year, the battle-hardened group was hailed as heroic for withstanding a months-long siege of the southeastern city of Mariupol.

Then, in February, the Ukrainian Interior Ministry announced that Azov would be expanded into an assault brigade as part of the new Offensive Guard.

Under its rules, Azov only accepts those who sign up of their own accord — not draftees — and it reserves the right to reject people whom it does not believe will be a good fit, which it says allows it to select the most motivated soldiers. Azov has launched a massive recruitment campaign for its new status as a brigade, with many of its men who were captured in Mariupol last year and eventually released now training recruits.

Other civilians, unwilling to enlist just yet but preparing in case they are called up, are attending private trainings or workout sessions so that when the time comes, they are not starting from scratch.

“I’m 100 percent sure I’ll be drafted sooner or later,” Sasha, the casting director informally training with friends in the capital, said. Despite having taken a military course at university that would technically qualify him to serve as an officer in the army, he could barely handle a weapon until recently. Now he believes his civilian days are numbered, “especially with the counteroffensive everyone is waiting for,” and he has enrolled in training.

“I’m literally forcing myself because I understand it might happen,” he said.

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Meanwhile, at a training camp in the Kyiv region, new Azov recruits lined up at a shooting range, learning to use C7A1 rifles. One of their trainers, a Russian-speaking former American Marine who joined Azov and goes by the call sign Frodo, said that “the majority of these guys a month ago were civilians.” One sat against a wall, studying a translated U.S. military handbook.

That they were motivated enough to sign up on their own means they act more like “warriors than soldiers,” Frodo said.

The training condenses the roughly three-month U.S. Marine Corps basic training into just four weeks, he said. During that time, the troops learn everything from marksmanship and cartography to radios and engineering. It’s possible — likely even — they could then be deployed almost immediately to the country’s hottest front lines.

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It seems like a recipe for disaster to throw hordes of untested soldiers into the mix right at the point of a decisive counter attack. The short training cycle and the lack of battle hardening seem like they should be augmented with rotation into quiet sectors of the front to let the men get used to combat.

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This seems odd. I'm going to get ready to fight but only when I randomly get drafted?

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I think that thermal drones will be increasingly valuable.

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