North Korea’s alliance with Russia proves Ukraine is not about religion

Responding to the deployment of North Korea soldiers to Russia, NATO’s secretary-general signaled that the action represented “a significant escalation" in its "ongoing involvement in Russia’s illegal war”; “yet another breach of UN Security Council resolutions”; and “a dangerous expansion of Russia’s war.”

More than this, however, Vladimir Putin now is resorting to foot soldiers from a notoriously anti-religious regime for a fight that he has claimed is about saving Russian civilization and the Russian Orthodox Church-Moscow Patriarchate from an alleged onslaught by the satanic West.

This new development confirms that Russia’s proffered religious justification for war is mere subterfuge. It also strips away the veneer of theological cover invoked by the Moscow Patriarchate to justify its vociferous support for Russia’s “holy war.”

Faced with this clarifying moment, Ukraine’s allies should move to implement long-overdue uniform and meaningful sanctions against the church’s hierarchy and any affiliated institutions that continue to busy themselves validating and perpetuating Russia’s illegal invasion and occupation.

For President Putin, the salvific imperial mission of repelling the West’s all-corrupting and degenerate ultraliberalism plays a central role in Kremlin justifications for war and its claim to defend Orthodox “spiritual unity.”

Only three days before the 2022 invasion, Putin asserted that Ukraine “is an inalienable part” of Russia. “Since time immemorial, the people living [there] have called themselves Russians and Orthodox Christians.” More directly, Putin accused Ukraine of squandering this civilizational inheritance by seeking “the destruction of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate” and “root[ing] out the Russian language and culture.”

After formally declaring a “special military operation” in Ukraine, Putin laid bare the religious manifest destiny undergirding the invasion. Tellingly, he pointed the finger not at NATO or Ukraine’s rejection of its Russian patrimony, but specifically at Western liberalism: “[T]hey sought to destroy our traditional values and force on us their false values that would erode us, our people from within. … This is not going to happen.”

Underscoring Putin’s religious justification for war, Russia’s 2023 Foreign Policy Concept postulates as core principles the defense of Orthodoxy and the Moscow Patriarchate, and the promotion of “traditional Russian moral and spiritual values.” Russia’s efforts to deflect the illegality of its invasion and implement the Foreign Policy Concept are on regular display at the United Nations.

Here, Russian diplomats paper over their country’s invasion and instead accuse the Ukrainian government of warring “against canonical orthodoxy,” comparing Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky to the “Roman persecutors of Christians” and claiming that the “first step towards restoring peace in Ukraine ... is to end the persecution of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church.”

The Foreign Policy Concept places Russian Orthodoxy on a pedestal in part due to the enthusiastic theological support for war voiced by the Moscow Patriarchate and its leader, Patriarch Kirill. Kirill was quick to endorse the invasion of Ukraine as necessary to forestall godlessness from poisoning Russia’s claimed sphere of influence. During a sermon two weeks into the war, he asserted that the conflict was about nothing less than “which side of God humanity will be on.”

Later, Kirill attributed an “undoubted religious dimension” to the war, claiming the West harbored an “irrational hatred of the peoples professing Orthodoxy.” If this initial framing seemed timid or unclear, by March 2024 it emerged as full-throated and indisputable. Under Patriarch Kirill’s chairmanship, the Moscow Patriarchate-controlled World Russian Peoples’ Council declared the invasion nothing less than “a Holy War [to defend] the single spiritual space of Holy Russia [and to protect] the world from … the West that has fallen into Satanism."

Today, despite the lavish religious window dressing surrounding the invasion, this ostensibly sacred mission has been entrusted to the godless foot soldiers of North Korea. These soldiers do not represent devout legions who have pledged fidelity to the defense of the Moscow Patriarchate, “canonical Orthodoxy,” or Russia’s spiritual unity. Rather, they are steeped in a decidedly anti-Christian worldview.

As a recent U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom report relays, “the North Korean government regards Christians as 'counter-revolutionaries' and 'traitors' ... who must be eliminated. Possessing a Bible, practicing the faith, and simply being a Christian could lead to severe punishment, including ... execution.”

Taking a page from the Soviets, a “dictionary on philosophy” published by the North Korean Academy of Social Science Philosophy Institute defines religion as “historically seized by the ruling class to deceive the masses” and a tool “used as a means to exploit and oppress.” As part of the regime’s effort to claim “total control of organized social life,” it “treats religion as an existential threat,” regularly reinforcing national antipathy toward faith and spirituality. Christianity is no exception to this policy, but rather is considered “a particularly serious threat since it ideologically challenges [North Korea’s] official personality cult.”

This is the breeding ground for the soldiers Putin has summoned to wage his “holy war.” And this desperation confirms two truths: First, that the invasion’s purpose was and remains a crass land-grab driven by a desire to reignite Russian imperialism. Second, that the Moscow Patriarchate’s steady effort to mask the invasion as theologically just is morally bankrupt.

This reality must finally register with those states that have to date avoided imposing sanctions against the Russian church’s hierarchy and its associated agents. If the import of North Korean troops tells us anything, it is that challenging Moscow’s actions against Ukraine is the necessary and correct response.

As part of this, none of the war’s enablers — including the Moscow Patriarchate, which has evaded any real responsibility for nearly three years — should be allowed to continue its support without paying a price for it.

Robert C. Blitt is the Woolf, McClane, Bright, Allen and Carpenter Distinguished Professor of Law at the University of Tennessee College of Law.