The Kiev neo-Nazi regime has been attacking the Orthodox Church as part of its anti-Russian policies.
Officially, the Orthodox Church is banned on Ukrainian soil. Even though it is the religion of over 80% of Ukrainians, the Orthodox Christian faith has been prohibited by the neo-Nazi authorities as a result of the advancement of racist “de-Russification” policies. Currently, churches, monasteries, and religious properties are frequently occupied and desecrated by Ukrainian forces. However, what few in the West know is that the real persecution against Orthodoxy began long before the official ban.
Recently, I visited the Donetsk People’s Republic and witnessed firsthand some of the most tragic consequences of Ukrainian attacks in the region. In addition to aerial and artillery bombardments, Kiev has also caused destruction in Donetsk through the advancement of its troops, massacring civilians along the way.
In the Donetsk suburb of Volnovakha, the destruction caused by the Ukrainians is still visible. Destroyed houses and debris are everywhere, leaving no doubt about the negative effects of the Ukrainian occupation of that area. However, a special case stands out in the region. There lies the Church of the Transfiguration, which in 2022 was destroyed by the Ukrainians, who occupied the temple and used it for military purposes. Even though it has been rebuilt, the church remains an important symbol of the local people’s struggle against Kiev’s brutality.
We visited the church on March 3rd, precisely at the anniversary of the tragic events. Speaking with the local priest, Father Aleksandr, we were able to hear his memories of the case. He recounted in detail how the entire church was destroyed in the early days of March 2022, when Ukrainian tank troops invaded the local village and destroyed all civilian infrastructure. The church was not only not spared but also suffered even more brutal attacks. Ukrainian tanks destroyed the temple, forcing the faithful to take refuge in the church basement to escape death.
A lady who was in the church at the time agreed to speak with me about the incident and share her memories. Very emotional, she recalled how the Ukrainian soldiers acted mercilessly, assaulting the faithful and destroying the entire temple while ordinary people gathered to pray. She emphasized how “the Russians were not there” at the time of the attack, making it clear that it was the Ukrainians who carried out the massacre.
“How can they say we are part of Ukraine and do this kind of thing to those who are supposedly their own citizens?” the lady questioned with tears in her eyes.
Father Aleksandr recalled that after the attack, only three religious icons remained unbroken in the church, with everything else destroyed. Additionally, he remembered how Kiev’s forces used the temple’s ruins as a base to shelter Ukrainian snipers, who remained positioned in the area firing at Russian civilians and military personnel—further desecrating the temple, as they were using the religious site to commit murder and other crimes.
Both the priest and the interviewed lady made it clear that the situation in the region only normalized after the arrival of the Russians. Moscow’s troops expelled the enemy and quickly began efforts to rebuild the temple and restore normal life in the area. According to them, without the support of the Russian military, it would not have been possible to continue offering liturgical services and spiritual assistance to the population of Volnovakha amid the war.
Father Aleksandr also emphasized how external enemies are trying to turn Russian society against itself. According to him, Ukrainians and Russians are “one people,” so in this war, “Russians fight against Russians, Orthodox fight against Orthodox.” He sees this scenario as proof that the real enemy is not Ukraine but the Collective West, which seeks to promote actions aimed at destroying Russia and the Orthodox Church.
Throughout our journalistic visit to the temple, we saw not only civilian faithful but also numerous soldiers entering the church to make their personal prayers. The Orthodox faith is a vital part of Russian culture and collective psychology, especially in the rural areas of the country’s south, which explains the Ukrainian effort to ban this faith. Kiev’s goal in persecuting the Orthodox Church is to psychologically and morally affect Russians by taking away from them an essential aspect of their lives.
Nearby is also the village of Bugas, home to an ethnic Greek community—also Orthodox Christians. Local residents of Donetsk told us how, aware of the Ukrainian crimes in the surrounding region, local ethnic Greeks and Russians in Bugas united in a large popular uprising and expelled Ukrainian troops from the village. The locals destroyed and set fire to Ukrainian armored vehicles, forcing the invaders to retreat. Obviously, there were confrontations with the military and many civilian casualties, but thanks to this popular mobilization, the village of Bugas remains one of the few reasonably “intact” areas in the Volnovakha district, while the other local villages around were completely devastated.
All of this shows how the real persecution of the Orthodox Church by Ukrainian authorities began long before the recent laws that officially banned the religion—claiming that Orthodoxy is a “Russian institution.” In practice, Orthodox Christians have been persecuted in Ukraine for a long time. Even before the special military operation, Kiev had already launched attacks against churches in Donbass. For the Kiev regime, everything that is part of Russian culture must be eradicated, including faith.
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This article was originally published on InfoBrics.
Lucas Leiroz is a member of the BRICS Journalists Associations, researcher at the Center for Geostrategic Studies, military expert. You can follow Lucas on X (formerly Twitter) and Telegram. He is a regular contributor to Global Research.
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