The Russian military has disproportionately attacked evangelical Christians and “destroyed, damaged, or looted” at least 494 religious buildings, theological institutions, and sacred sites in Ukraine since invading the neighboring nation almost a year ago, according to the Kyiv-based Institute for Religious Freedom (IRF).

The independent research іnstitute presented its latest report this week during the third International Religious Freedom Summit in Washington, D.C.

The IRF aims to catalog evidence of Russian war crimes against Ukrainian religious communities. The destruction of religious sites is often intentional and happening in tandem with attacks on civilian believers and pastors, said executive director Maksym Vasin.

During his speech, Vasin stated that Russian authorities often target clergy and ordinary believers for speaking Ukrainian, exhibiting Ukrainian identity, or belonging to a different denomination than the Moscow Patriarchate. He hopes that the evidence his institute has collected will encourage international bodies such as the International Criminal Court to investigate and charge Russian authorities not just with the war crime of attacking religious sites but also with crimes against humanity and genocide.

“In their entirety, Russian war crimes committed in Ukraine may indicate the existence of a special genocidal intent aimed at destroying the Ukrainian people, which is a distinct crime under international humanitarian law,” Vasin said.

At a Summit side event focused on Ukraine, panelists including Maksym Vasin, Valentyn Siniy, Igor Bandura, first vice president of the Baptist Union, and Andriy Dudchenko, OCU archpriest and lecturer at Kyiv Orthodox Theological Academy, urged the continuation of military support to Ukraine. Wherever Russia controls Ukrainian territory, all religious organizations come under the control of counterparts loyal to Moscow or they are disbanded or destroyed, panelists said.

The full article is published in Christianity Today