Russia continues to use the network of the Russian Orthodox Church abroad for the activities of its security services and to influence Ukrainian refugees in European countries.
This was stated by Father Kostyantyn Kholodov, head of the Military Chaplaincy Service of the Defence Intelligence of Ukraine.
He made the statement during a discussion at the forum The Russian Orthodox Church in Europe: Infrastructure of Russian Influence, held on 17 July in Kyiv.
“This is about the systematic activity of Russian security services across Europe — it is not the Russian Orthodox Church, not the Russian Orthodox Church Outside Russia, or anything else. In reality, these are cover-story hubs. These are places police cannot enter. These are places where you can spend the night, change clothes, glue on a moustache, and so on. In these hubs, Russians operate systematically, at the state level,” Kostyantyn Kholodov stressed.
According to him, the analytical study of the Russian Orthodox Church’s activities in Europe presented at the forum could become a practical tool for shaping Ukraine’s presence abroad.
“We must strengthen our own church, cultural, educational, informational, and security infrastructure abroad so that millions of Ukrainians continue to identify with Ukraine and do not submit to the destructive influence from Moscow,” Kholodov emphasised.
- The intensification of the Russian Church’s activities in Africa is linked to the need to increase the number of allies after the start of the full-scale war against Ukraine.