РОЛЬ РОСІЙСЬКОЇ ПРАВОСЛАВНОЇ ЦЕРКВИ У РОЗГОРТАННІ СУЧАСНОЇ РОСІЙСЬКО-УКРАЇНСЬКОЇ ВІЙНИ (2013–2015)

The role of the Russian Orthodox Church (ROC) in the development of the contemporary Russian-Ukrainian war in 2013–2015 is analyzed. It is claimed that since the early 2000s, which chronologically coincided with the rise to power of Vladimir Putin, the ROC, using a wide range of tools to influence society (from religious practices to active PR on social networks), has become a powerful player not only and not so much in the spiritual sphere as in the field of ideology, consolidation and mobilization of public opinion, its direction in the right political narrative. These processes became especially relevant after the ROC was headed by Kirill (Gundyaev) in February 2009. The new head of the ROC regularly during public speeches expressed confidence that the spiritual basis of the «Russian world» is the Russian («Russkaya») Orthodox Church, whose name – «Russian» – meant not an ethnic component, but a cultural community, and therefore to «Russian people» in addition to the actual Russians also included Ukrainians and Belarusians. Accordingly, he was a supporter of pro-Russian foreign policy by the Belarusian and especially Ukrainian authorities. From such positions, the leadership of the ROC assessed the events of the Revolution of Dignity, perceiving it as a «Ukrainian crisis» provoked by Western countries to destroy the «spiritual unity» of Russians and Ukrainians, a single «common church» and «heritage of historical Russia». At the same time, the ROC’s reaction to Russia’s annexation of Crimea and the subsequent invasion of Russian troops on part of Donbass was absent. When the «hot battles» soon began in eastern Ukraine, they were perceived by the ROC exclusively as an intra-Ukrainian «civil war» in the escalation of which only official Kyiv was to blame. There were also reports of Ukraine’s incapacity as a state and an international partner, and there were even calls for non-recognition of secular power in Ukraine. However, after the hot battles at the front finally escalated into a phase of positional confrontation, in late May 2015 Russia announced the official closure of the «Novorossiya» project, and the Russian economy gradually began to feel the effects of international sanctions, the ROC has returned from the strategy of «power blitzkrieg» to its characteristic before 2014 «milder» strategy of «Soft power», which aimed to spread among Ukrainian society only positive image of Russia, Euroscepticism and beliefs in the permanent incapacity and inefficiency of Ukraine as a state without Russian «fraternal» support.

Russian Orthodox Church, «Russian world», Revolution of Dignity, contemporary Russian-Ukrainian war.