At least 270 places of worship, spiritual educational institutions, and sacred sites were either destroyed or damaged by Russian troops, between February 24 and July 15, 2022.

That’s according to a report just published by the Institute for Religious Freedom (IRF), a human rights NGO, founded in 2001 in Kyiv, Ukraine.

While Russian attacks on religious entities in Ukraine have been occurring since 2014, the report says they have become more common and harsher this year.

“If previously priests on the occupied territories only received death threats, now religious leaders are tortured and killed – again, but on a scale far worse than in 2014. If previously Russian occupational authorities expelled Ukrainian believers from their churches and prayer houses, now Russia is destroying the spiritual heritage of Ukraine with missile attacks, shelling, and looting of religious buildings without justification by military necessity.”

The report suggests that “Russian media and religious leaders, such as Patriarch Kirill (…), are justifying the war against Ukraine with propaganda about the supposed protection of Orthodox believers of the Moscow Patriarchate and Russian speakers.” Furthermore, as reported in a new expert legal analysis, “Religious authorities [in Russia] have reinforced the narrative praising the invasion with innuendo and [imbuing it with] spiritual meaning”.