As part of a joint large-scale investigation by the Russian opposition student magazine DOXA and the Kidmapping resource, it became known about the significant role of the Russian Orthodox Church (ROC) in destroying the identity of Ukrainian children abducted by the Russians.
Points of attention
- The Russian Orthodox Church plays an important role in the abduction and Russification of Ukrainian children who were taken to Russia.
- Clergy members of the Russian Orthodox Church actively encourage Ukrainian children to be baptized and join pro-Russian organizations.
- The Russian Orthodox Church cooperates with Kremlin officials in the process of Russification and military indoctrination of Ukrainian youth.
- In Ukraine, they are calling for the ROC to be banned because of its role in abducting Ukrainian children and supporting the Russian occupation.
ROC actively carries out the Russification of minor Ukrainians
As the investigators managed to find out, already in the first days of the full-scale invasion of the Russian Federation into Ukraine, the Russians began to actively kidnap children from orphanages and boarding schools in the occupied Donetsk region.
Then they were taken to the Rostov region of Russia, where they were visited by Metropolitan Mercuriy of Rostov and Novocherkassk (Igor Ivanov), who told them about the enemy church.
It is also essential to understand that, in Russia, kidnapped minor Ukrainians were called many times to be baptised in the Russian Orthodox Church and also encouraged to join various "military-patriotic" youth organisations in Russia.
Kidnapped children from the occupied Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts have been repeatedly held in ROC shelters in the Voronezh region, where ROC clergy and related officials conduct "military-patriotic" events for minors to encourage pro-Russian sentiment and cut the children off from their Ukrainian identity, — the investigation says.
It is also an eloquent fact that the scandalous Russian ombudsman Maria Lvova-Belova, against whom the International Criminal Court issued an arrest warrant for her role in facilitating the abduction of Ukrainian children, is married to a priest of the Russian Orthodox Church.
It is currently known that together they adopted a deported Ukrainian child from Mariupol, which emphasises the personal involvement of the Russian Orthodox Church and other Kremlin officials in the deportation of Ukrainian children.
See also the documentary "Abducted Childhood", created by the Online.UA team. She reveals the truth about Russia's abduction of Ukrainian children from the temporarily occupied territories of Ukraine.
Artem "Skhidnyi" Karyakin urged parliament to ban the Russian Orthodox Church in Ukraine
AFU military serviceman and partisan Artem "Skhidnyi" Karyakin appealed to the Ukrainian parliament — he asked to immediately support bill No. 8371 on banning the Russian Orthodox Church in Ukraine.
According to the soldier, followers of the FSB, represented by the Russian Orthodox Church, have no place in our country, especially at the moment of a total war for the right of our nation to exist in independent Ukraine.
I am also appealing to my comrades from various units of the Armed Forces to record similar appeals and support an important initiative that, I am sure, will save thousands of Ukrainian lives.
Artem "Skhidnyi" Karyakin
AFU military serviceman, partisan
