A Strong Religious Element to the Russian Invasion of Ukraine

Vladimir Putin is a practicing Russian Orthodox Christian

The conventional wisdom is that religious wars between Christians are ancient history. The Russian invasion of Ukraine is not a religious war, but there is a strong religious element to Vladimir Putin's attempt to absorb Ukraine into Russia.

Frederick Kagan, former professor of military history at West Point, delves into this motivation when interviewed by Jordan Peterson on February 27, 2022: [bold added]

Putin has carried on the tradition of the czars of subordinating the Moscow patriarchate to himself. The Moscow patriarchate is fundamentally an arm of the Russian government, and so he controls it de facto.

It [the Russian Orthodox Church] is not an independent religious authority in reality, even though it is ostensibly. Its relations with the Vatican are whatever Putin decides he's willing to have them be at any given moment. I don't understand there to be a particularly contentious relationship [with the Vatican].

If you want to get really nerdly on this, there was a big fight a couple of years ago because the Ukrainian Orthodox Church had been a component, or subordinated to, the Moscow patriarchate. The formal leader of all of the Orthodox communities is in Istanbul. A few years ago, I forgot exactly when [note: January, 2019], the Ukrainian Orthodox Church petitioned the patriarch in Istanbul to grant it autocephaly, to make it independent of the Moscow patriarchate. And that was granted. And so the Ukrainian Orthodox Church has become an independent entity directly under the Istanbul patriarchate.

Putin bitterly resented that, hated it, attacked it. It is one of his grievances that that occurred.

The Eastern Orthodox Church is organized into 16 independent ("autocephalic") patriarchates, which now includes the three-year-old Orthodox Church of Ukraine. While each patriarchate is self-governing, Orthodox Christians can take communion in any other Orthodox church.

Note: Professor Kagan apparently misspoke when he said that Ukraine, which had been part of the Russian church, was now "under" Istanbul; Istanbul recognized Ukraine as independent from the Russian Orthodox Church, which is one of the 15 other hierarchies. Note also that the Istanbul bishop is not "the formal leader" but is first among equals; he has no formal authority over the other patriarchates.

Below is the YouTube recording of the interview. The excerpt above begins at 14:20.