freediver wrote on Aug 21
st, 2024 at 4:28pm:
I doubt he is fooling anyone. Putting aside the issue of starting a pointless war, there is also plenty of direct persecution of Christians:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persecution_of_Christians_in_the_Soviet_Union
Throughout the history of the Soviet Union (1917–1991), there were periods when Soviet authorities suppressed and persecuted various forms of Christianity to different extents depending on state interests.[1] Soviet Marxist-Leninist policy consistently advocated the control, suppression, and ultimately, the elimination of religious beliefs, and it actively encouraged the propagation of Marxist-Leninist atheism in the Soviet Union.
What does the past of another social system have to do with today's reality?
New Orthodox churches are being built and opened in Russia every day.
Quote:https://time.com/6969273/russias-war-against-evangelicals/
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is accompanied with a strategic effort to repress, control, and crush religious groups outside of the Kremlin controlled Moscow Patriarchate, the Russian Orthodox Church. There are over thirty cases of religious clergy killed and kidnapped. 109 known cases of interrogations, forced expulsions, imprisonments, arrests. 600 houses of worship destroyed. And these are just the confirmed numbers, with the real ones in information blackout of the occupied territories will much likely be higher.
You probably don't know that a few days ago the Ukrainian Parliament banned the Ukrainian Orthodox Church.
And more:
REPORT of the Foreign Ministry of the Russian Federation «Illegal actions by the Kiev regime targeting the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (UOC), its clergy and parishioners»25 July 2023 - 23:06
7. Response by certain international human rights organisations.....
"In addition to this, the UN Human Rights Council published its decision expressing concern with reports about the rights violations faced by UOC believers. In particular, it noted: “The committee is concerned at reports of violence, intimidation and acts of vandalism of places of worship in connection with the process of transitioning churches and religious communities from the Ukrainian Orthodox Church to the newly established Orthodox Church of Ukraine. The Committee is further concerned at the reported inaction of the police in such incidents and the lack of information on investigations conducted by the State party.”
.....
https://www.mid.ru/en/foreign_policy/humanitarian_cooperation/1898457/