Russia continued to persecute pastors and shutter churches within its borders and in territories it occupies in Ukraine in 2025, the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) stated June 30 in an updated report on Russia.
Russia imprisoned, tortured and levied monetary fines against many religious leaders, including Protestant, Catholic, Orthodox Church of Ukraine (OCU), and others this year, USCIRF said in the update to its Russia Chapter of the 2025 Report on International Religious Freedom. The updated report adds violations from 2024 not listed in the original report.
“Russia continued to perpetrate particularly severe religious freedom violations against a wide range of religious groups in Russia and Russian-occupied territories of Ukraine as well as civil society activists and human rights defenders who work on freedom of religion or belief issues,” USCIRF said in its update, citing Russia’s “blatant violation of international law.”
USCIRF released the update amid stalled ceasefire talks in the war between Russia and Ukraine, reiterating recommendations to the U.S. government cited in the 2025 international report, including congressional advocacy for prisoners of conscience in Russia.
Russia and the U.S. blamed one another for stalled peace negotiations as recently as July 1 as fighting continued between Ukraine and Russia. Russia fired on Kyiv on June 28 what Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy described as the biggest air attack to date of the three-year war, launching 500 aerial weapons overnight.
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The updated report notes that Russian de facto authorities reportedly demolished the last remaining OCU church in Russian-occupied Crimea in July 2024, an incident not reported in USCIRF’s 2025 international report.
As recently as May in Russia, the Fourth Cassation Court of General Jurisdiction upheld a ban on the activities of a Baptist house of prayer in Kurganinsk, USCIRF said in its update. Russia accused the house of prayer of failing to properly register as a religious organization and thereby conducting “illegal missionary activities for its roughly 1,500 attendees.” Russia shuttered the church building, the latest reported among many.
In April, the Nevsky District Court in St. Petersburg fined Apostolic Orthodox Church Archbishop Grigory Mikhnov-Vaitenko 30,000 rubles ($369) for posting in March 2022 an anti-war video in which he discussed Russia’s invasion of Ukraine using a biblical story, USCIRF said.
In March and April, courts in the Republic of Bashkortostan sentenced an individual to 360 hours of community service and gave another a two-year suspended prison sentence for collecting donations for All-Ukrainian Spiritual Center Renaissance and its charitable arm, USCIRF reported. The two groups have been banned since 2022 when the government declared them “undesirable.”
In January, authorities detained Pastor Stanislav Moskvitin – previously imprisoned for religious activities – for allegedly showing videos of pastors from the banned Transformation Center Church International during a church meeting.
Among 2024 violations included in the update, law enforcement reportedly physically assaulted and arrested Pentecostal pastor Nikolay Romanyuk at his home in October 2024 because of a sermon he gave during Sunday worship in September 2022. Romanyuk had called on fellow Christians not to participate in Russia’s war against Ukraine.
In November 2024, the Berezovka District Court fined a Baptist Christian 60,000 rubles ($738) for refusing to engage in military service, USCIRF reported. Other conscientious objectors, including Protestant Christians Vyacheslav Reznichenko and Andrey Kapatsyna, remain in prison, the commission said.
Russian authorities tortured Ukrainian Greek Catholic priests Ivan Levitsky and Bohdan Geleta while detaining them from November 2022 to June 2024, USCIRF said, citing a December 2024 United Nations human rights report. One priest described regular beatings, prolonged stress positions and long-distance crawls on asphalt.
Throughout 2024, according to statistics published by the Russian Supreme Court, Russian courts considered 431 cases of religious law violations and issued fines totaling about $58,400.
Protestants comprise 1 percent or less of Russia’s population, USCIRF said, based on a 2023 poll from the independent Levada Center. Other minority religious groups of 1 percent or less include Jehovah’s Witnesses, Roman Catholics, Jews and members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
Russia’s population is mostly Orthodox Christian, with 72 percent aligning with the Russian Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate (ROCMP). Muslims are 7 percent of the population, 5 percent are atheists, and 13 percent cite no religious affiliation.
The U.S. State Department included Russia as a Country of Particular Concern (CPC) “for engaging in systemic, ongoing, and egregious violations of religious freedom” under the International Religious Freedom Act in its last round of designations in 2023. No designations have been issued since then, as the Biden administration did not issue a list in its last year in office, and the Trump administration has yet to issue designations.
USCIRF continues to recommend Russia for the CPC designation, together with targeted sanctions on Russian government agencies including the Federal Security Services and against individuals responsible for such violations.
This article was originally published by Baptist Press and has been reprinted with permission.
Diana Chandler is senior writer for Baptist Press.
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20 Responses
In Russia, there is only One True Church — the Russian Orthodox Church.
And they do NOT share Power.
Lord, strengthen and help these Christians!
Having been to Russia in 2005 when I was still part of a Bible based cult that set up shop there after the fall of the Soviet Union, it came as a shock to learn that Russia has now banned the group’s study Bible due to claims of extremism.
Link to the official Moscow news report dated Mar 7, 2025:
https://www.rapsinews.ru/judicial_news/20250307/310688471.html
What’s funny about this is that no coverage of this has emerged yet in Western media.
A special request for prayer concerning this was issued ten days later in Philippines: https://www.churchinmanila.org/uncategorized/for-the-lords-move-in-r-urgent-prayer-requests/
One additional matter: The Bible Publisher’s online storefront – kbk.ru – has been disabled since March.
In the interests of transparency, as a former member of this group who experienced firsthand and or witnessed harm being done to others in this group – my approval of Russia’s actions in this specific case can not be understated. The Russian people must be protected from this group because it tears apart families in the name of Christ.
Steve Nelson,
Hmm… funny I recall that the actual, true Jesus of Scripture also “tore families apart”. What are you saying–a totalitarian, quasi-Soviet regime should have the power to shut down and jail any church it doesn’t like?
Protestants are very arrogant, thinking that they need to evangelize an already Christian nation. Nothing wrong with Orthodox Christians. Just because they don’t think exactly like the Protestant/evangelical, doesn’t mean they’re wrong.
George Sidor,
Yes, a righteous and holy church that believes that Putin is its leader and prophet, that persecutes real Christians, that supports Hamas and Hezbollah and every other enemy of Israel and Western Christians.
M-hmm.
Yes, and it’s one of those terrible tit-for-tat things that war brings. The warmongering instigators (most of us know who they are, see Rev. 2:9), in this case had Ukraine ban, burn and kill Russian-speaking peoples and the Russian Orthodox churches (whom and which were predominant in what was Eastern Ukraine) in order to instigate the war in the first place. This is retribution.
I see you are buying the Russian line about Ukraine being the instigator of this war.
And yet no proof was cited. Most of the accusations against Ukraine being the instigator have been part of Russian propaganda that many supporters of Russia here in the States have bought into.
Another comment below carries the same sentiment as Mr. Koziol’s.
The accusation that Ukraine was banning, burning and killing Russian-speaking peoples and e Russian Orthodox churches is for the most part misinformation. Please provide links to reputable news sources to prove this.
Refutations of your claims can be found here
https://kyivindependent.com/ukraine-fights-disinformation-not-christians-amid-russian-aggression/
And here
https://www.csis.org/analysis/russias-religious-persecution-and-misinformation-ukraine
I humbly believe you are making a mistake in your assessment. Western Ukraine is infiltrated into every layer of society by Nazi regurgitation … here is the reason for continuous aggression since 2014 towards the populations to the east of the most Russian-speaking Ukraine …. and here is explained the Russian action of attacking Nazism … I am Italian and many Italians are comfortable with Ukrainians who fled because they are pro-Nazi …. many Italian Nazis went to enlist with the Ukrainian army … also explain the harsh crises between the Ukrainian and Russian Orthodox churches …. sorry for my English … best regards
Sigh. Their president is Jewish.
Leslie,
Thank you for this comment! I did not realize this.
I provided sources for my claims you did not. Please provide links to reputable news sources.
Here is mine for the issue at hand
https://www.factcheck.org/2022/03/the-facts-on-de-nazifying-ukraine/
BTW your statements seem rather odd since Volodymyr Zelenskyy identifies as Jewish. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volodymyr_Zelenskyy#Early_life
Russia instigated this by violating the 1994 Budapest Memorandum on Security Assurances when it annexed the Crimea in 2014. They also violated that agreement when they annexed the Donbas region under the guise of “protecting” the minority Russian population. Funny, another autocratic leader made the same excuse for annexing the Sudetenland in 1938 to “protect” German minorities.
An interesting article showing one side of what occurs when fighting pushes into the civilian sectors. It did not report on Zelenskyy destroying Russian Orthodox and other churches and imprisoning those leading the services. It did not report on the Ukraine pressing Christians into front line service with little or no training. It did not report on pastors being put into uniform and pushed to the front also.
Pray for our brothers on both sides of this conflict and in the neighboring countries that God would use them as shining lights among the lost.
Ukraine had to send raw troops into the fighting to defend their territory. Russia has done the same (and in far larger numbers). Most of the trained military units on both sides were decimated earlier in the conflict. You do realize the US sent Christians into combat as raw GIs during WWII right? Look up the Battle of Bataan in WWII or Task Force Smith in the Korean War and get back to me.
It’s a strange time when you’re labeled “communist” for opposing tax cuts to billionaires, yet being critical of Russian aggression/ oppression is too one-sided.
Meanwhile also tens of thousands of Ukraine and Russian mothers weep with grief due to the deaths of their young sons many of which never had the opportunity to to fall in love and have families of their own.
Perhaps if such mothers were given positions of power that excluded geopolitics all this terrible suffering and deaths would cease within a week.
So Putin is sending 700+ missiles and drones per night into apartment blocks full of women and children. While the Russian Orthodox Church blesses the troops. Yes…. I saw Putin holding his candle in Easter Services……
Also, the Trump administration may not support Ukraine going forward, no matter…… the large majority of U.S. White Evangelicals will still support Dear Leader.