European institutions should recognise that the Russian Orthodox Church (ROC) is a direct extension of the Kremlin regime.
This was stated by former Kremlin prisoner and ex-mayor of Kherson Volodymyr Mykolayenko during a roundtable discussion on arrests and torture in the occupied territories of Ukraine, held at the Dutch Parliament’s Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs.
Mykolayenko described how, during his captivity, he was tortured by being forced to listen to radio broadcasts featuring sermons by Russian priests, while prisoners were subsequently beaten nearly to death.
“As a believer, I would like to say a few words about the Russian Orthodox Church’s involvement in starting this war. In captivity, we were tortured every day with radio broadcasts featuring Russian priests. And the people who played us programmes about Christ in the morning would beat prisoners nearly to death in the evening.
That is why ‘Russian Christianity’ is much more ‘Russian’ than it is ‘Christian’,” Mykolayenko noted.
According to him, the ROC and its branch, the Moscow Patriarchate in Ukraine, are engaged in justifying Russian crimes and attempting to portray Russians as a “superior race” entitled to do anything, with all sins supposedly forgiven for participation in the so-called “special military operation”.
He recalled that in March 2024, at the World Russian People’s Council chaired by Patriarch Kirill Gundyayev, the invasion of Ukraine was declared a “holy war”.
“It is this Church that has developed and promoted the totalitarian doctrine of the ‘Russian World’, which justifies the destruction of Ukrainian statehood and makes territorial claims against the Baltic states and countries of Eastern Europe.
In 2024–2026, the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) and the European Parliament officially identified the ROC as an instrument of Kremlin propaganda, political and hybrid influence, and as a participant in war crimes. European institutions should therefore recognise that the ROC is a direct extension of the Kremlin regime,” Mykolayenko said.
Background
Volodymyr Mykolayenko was abducted by Russian occupying forces and Russian intelligence services in Kherson on 18 April 2022 after categorically refusing to cooperate with the occupiers. He was held in pre-trial detention centres and penal colonies in Russian-occupied territories and in Russia, including Crimea and Penal Colony No. 7 in the town of Pakino, where he was subjected to torture.
He was released on 24 August 2025, Ukraine’s Independence Day, as part of a major prisoner exchange.
