Religion, ideology, & empire in Russia & Ukraine. Analytical, anti-authoritarian, & focused on Orthodox institutions as political actors. No Kremlin propaganda.

Joined May 2015
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Russia’s Anti-Abortion Campaign Has Hit a Political Wall: open.substack.com/pub/russia…
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RussiaReligionWatch retweeted
The bells of the Lavra rang out across Kyiv after Russia’s massive attack on the capital. A sound of faith, resilience, and survival above a city that endured another night of terror.
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Russia bombed the Dovzhenko Film Studio in Kyiv overnight, destroying Ukraine's largest costume archive, roughly 100,000 costumes and 3 million clothing items, built up over decades of Ukrainian filmmaking history. Gone. This wasn't incidental. It's part of a pattern of strikes on Ukrainian cultural sites, alongside this week's hit on the Kyiv Pechersk Lavra, that target memory and identity, not just infrastructure. I hope the international film community responds loudly. And I'd add this: after four years of full-scale war, some Western festivals are quietly making room again for Russian films and "Russian perspectives." Whatever the intent, gestures toward neutrality in this context don't read as balance, they read as normalization.
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RussiaReligionWatch retweeted
Польский телеканал подтвердил убийство художника Семена Скрепецкого Российский художник Семен Скрепецкий, известный критикой Кремля и Рамзана Кадырова, убит в польском городе Бяла-Подляска, подтвердил польский телеканал wPolsce24. Ранее о его убийстве сообщил белорусский оппозиционный телеграм-канал DzikMedia. Детали. Скрепецкий, по информации wPolsce24, был застрелен на парковке жилого комплекса. Телеканал сообщает, что убийца подошел к художнику и выстрелил несколько раз с близкого расстояния. Медикам спасти Скрепецкого не удалось. ▪️После убийства полиция перекрыла улицы города и взяла под охрану школы и детсады, где могли быть дети убитого, сообщает wPolsce24. ▪️Возле белорусского консульства был задержан подозреваемый. По информации телеканала, это граждани Беларуси. «Тот факт, что стрелок скрылся прямо к дипломатической миссии режима Александра Лукашенко, бросает мрачную тень на мотивы преступления», — подчеркивает канал. ▪️Пресс-секретарь местной прокуратуры подтвердил, что в городе был застрелен мужчина. ▪️Изначально СМИ сообщали лишь о том, что застрелен был гражданин России. О том, что это был именно Скрепецкий, первым сообщил DzikMedia (канал опубликовал только его имя и первую букву фамилии). По данным этого же телеграм-канала, убийц на место преступления привез таксист из Беларуси, позже ему стали угрожать пистолетом, он испугался и попытался убежать в белорусское консульство. ▪️Последний пост в телеграм-канале был опубликован в 9 утра по московскому времени. «Важные истории» пишут, что его аккаунт в Telegram удален. Кто такой Скрепецкий. Это российский художник, его настоящее имя — Роберт Кузовков. Он родился на Алтае и стал известен каррикатурами, которые делал в том числе на Владимира Путина, Алексея Навального, Рамзана Кадырова, Александра Лукашенко. ▪️В 2021 году он переехал из России в Польшу. В Европе он участвовал в акциях. Например, 12 июня в Берлине он вышел в пикет с картиной в стиле иконы со Сталиным и Путиным. А в 2024 году на марше российской оппозиции в немецкой столице он ходил с карикатурой на Навального с бутербродом. ▪️Незадолго до убийства адрес Скрепецкого, который также критиковал власти Украины, появился на «Миротворце», обратили внимание «Важные истории».
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RussiaReligionWatch retweeted
Yet somehow Zelenskyy not wearing a suit was a problem.
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Russians have struck the Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra and are burning down one of Ukraine's oldest Orthodox churches‼️ The roof of the Dormition Cathedral is ablaze. The cathedral itself is a significant part of our history, it is older than Moscow. It was already there when russian neanderthals were building shacks made of sticks and shit. Fucking barbarians!
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As I said... This is not pure idiocy, useful or otherwise. This is intentional abuse of power and, in fact, falsifications, all in furtherance of the interests of a foreign adversary.
EXCLUSIVE: 🚨 @TulsiGabbard Recycled Published Russian Intelligence And Claimed It Was An Official American Intelligence Document In Her Latest Act Of Deception Days Before She Is Set To “Resign” As DNI 🚨 In her “Ukrainian Bio lab” document “declassification” release this week, I’ve discovered that DNI Tulsi Gabbard used graphics from official Russian intelligence documents and slapped an ODNI @ODNIgov logo on top of these same documents to present them as an official intel report created by the US government. Upon further analysis of Tulsi Gabbard’s most recent declassification related to Ukraine, I have discovered evidence that she is directly peddling Russian government propaganda. Here’s the evidence: Source: dni.gov/files/BIOLAB_Slides.… Slide 1 ironically includes an IC assessment that claims Russia will attempt to spread false narratives about the US’s bio labs in Ukraine, which is exactly what @TulsiGabbard just helped the Russian Government do. Slide 2 contains an AI generated map of Ukraine which is clearly not an IC product, and which contains basic spelling and geographical errors, making a mockery of the US government. Slide 4 contains the internal work product of an American corporation (Black and Veatch) that worked with the Defense Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA) in Ukraine. The Russian Government claims to have captured these documents during their invasion of Ukraine. The Russian Government then widely publicized these products in their own official reports in 2022. Gabbard’s political staff (not IC analysts) recycled published propaganda of the Russian Government in an attempt to spread false narratives while falsely claiming the slideshow she released this week is an original work product of US intel agencies. Page 83 of the following document presented by the Russian Government to the UN Security Council shows the exact figure that Gabbard recycled in slide 4 of her release this week. Source: the-trench.org/wp-content/up… Gabbard’s intent with this deception is to conflate the biological safety work being done to prevent dangerous uses of Soviet era pathogens (which has been publicly disclosed since 2005 as the Nunn-Lugar Cooperative Threat Reduction framework) with bioweapons production so that Russia has another manufactured excuse to continue its prolonged war with Ukraine. Let’s be clear: there is no evidence that Ukraine in its longstanding cooperative program with the US has engaged in Gain of Function or biological weapons research. But what is clear is Tulsi Gabbard and her staff promulgated Russian intelligence products as American work, in violation of the Espionage Act. My FOIA request to ODNI regarding the production of these documents is being submitted on Monday morning. By law, ODNI has 10 business days to respond. I look forward to reading the emails. The Trump administration should order ODNI to take these Russian documents down today. This is embarrassing for the Trump administration. Nice to know ODNI gets their “intel” and their graphics from Russian intelligence. See photographic evidence below 👇🏻
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An Estonian court has ruled that restrictions on pro-Russian churches are constitutional: ua.news/en/all-news/sud-esto… @UaNews_online

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Quick tip for people from developed democracies: anyone who appears on state TV or suddenly turns up in autocratic countries is a regime stooge. It doesn't matter if they pose as a dissident, analyst, intellectual, artist, or a cute smol bean travel blogger, they all work for the regime in one capacity or another.
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RussiaReligionWatch retweeted
Konstantin Malofeev is a massive threat to global stability who is rarely discussed in the West. As an underestimated figure in modern Russia, he quietly builds the financial pipelines and propaganda networks used to wage hybrid war against the West. Malofeev has spent well over a decade serving as a crucial economic engine for Russian imperialism. He was a key funder behind the original 2014 occupation of Ukrainian territories and has consistently used his immense wealth to bypass international sanctions. Through his vast Tsargrad media network, he coordinates psychological operations that export extreme, anti-Western narratives disguised as conservative values. His domestic and political influence is mirrored perfectly in his personal life through his marriage to Maria Lvova-Belova. As the Russian official overseeing the mass kidnapping of Ukrainian children, his current wife is actively targeted by an ICC arrest warrant. This partnership shows that Malofeev is not just a passive media mogul, but an active participant in the most severe crimes against humanity committed by the state. The global community continues to underestimate Malofeev, which is a mistake. He actively pushes hardline state ideology, enabling the genocide in Ukraine, and funding neo-fascist movements across Europe to weaken democratic alliances from within. Understanding his operations is absolutely essential because ignoring a puppet master this powerful allows the Kremlin to continue its global destabilization campaign unchecked
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RussiaReligionWatch retweeted
Konstantin Malofeev is the guy who came out with this shit at his panel at the St Petersburg economic forum a fews day ago btw. Right images are Malofeev with neo nazis from the whole Europe at St Petersburg in fall 2025, him being Tommy Robinson sugar daddy would be totally on
If it's Malofeyev behind Yaxley Lennon aka Tommy Robinson, it's not just "the KGB". Malofeyev is called "an Orthodox oligarch", meaning the most retrograde, reactionist and dark forces fuelling the Russian nationalism. Malofeyev actively funds the Russian Orthodox Church, and thus has a huge influence there, the carnival "cossack movement" we saw in the Robinson's video, Dugin and other pseudo-religious trends. Including the savage antisemitism, of course, because he represents exactly the Black Hundred movement that fuelled pogroms 100 years ago and caused emigration, it's the very same thing. He was very active in Ukraine and was one of the main faces behind "the Donetsk and Luhansk People's Republics" in 2014 and the takeover of Crimea (very much connected with the church, too). His people, especially the so-called "Cossacks", were the biggest sadists among all who tortured POWs and civilians, they literally sawed people in half. Actually, if you asked me to name the most "black hundred" person in Russia, I would call not Dugin, as the Russian fascist ideologist, but his sponsor Konstantin Malofeyev. It's not even "Russians". It's the lowest low.
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Network of Russian far-right extremists steeped in neo-Nazi antisemitism - created under umbrella of sanctioned oligarch close to Putin, now openly promoted by Tommy Robinson - driving ‘White Lives Matter’ propaganda over murder of Henry Nowak: bylinetimes.com/2026/06/10/r….
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RussiaReligionWatch retweeted
Merz: "Ukraine has been defending its freedom for more than 4 years." (AfD members laughing) Merz: "That’s telling sign, ladies and gentlemen. They laugh about it, they laugh about fate of millions of people in Ukraine and they travel to Moscow for their champagne receptions."
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🚨EXCLUSIVE: MARJORIE TAYLOR GREENE APPEARS ON RUSSIAN STATE MEDIA Former congresswoman MTG steps up to the plate to help Russia’s influence operations Here she is being interviewed by Russian government propagandist & State Duma MP Yevgeny Popov for State TV channel Russia 1/Russia 24.
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RussiaReligionWatch retweeted
I’m sure it’s purely coincidental that top Russian influence agent Alexander Dugin has been pushing MTG to run for President as part of a “Conservative Revolution” with QAnon-like themes. I wrote in 2024 that the Seditionist Movement was uniting into a single bloc with just enough popular support to be able to credibly claim it can determine the outcome of close elections. That’s how you hijack America’s political system & disable its civil society from functioning in a healthy way. It’s a plan to defeat the West that might actually work.
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