Russia: a new private military company will act on behalf of the Orthodox Church

The organization "St. Andrew's Cross", which acts on behalf of the Russian Orthodox Church, has announced that it is forming battalions of volunteers to send them to Ukraine.

Here, a Russian soldier in the port of Mariupol on Sunday June 12 (illustration image).

PA

Text by: Léo Vidal-Giraud

1 min

This Saturday, November 12, the Russian press reports the forthcoming birth of a new private military company.

She is acting this time on behalf of the Russian Orthodox Church.

However paradoxical this may seem, this is in line with an increasingly strong instrumentalization of religion by Russian propaganda.

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Founded in 2017 in Saint Petersburg, the organization "

 " was initially a "simple" paramilitary training center, supervised by former special forces and supported by the Russian Orthodox Church.

But this Saturday, November 12, the organization announced that it wanted to form “ 

” who will be called upon to participate in the war in Ukraine.

In effect, this means the birth of the first religious private military company in Russia.

The concept seems completely anachronistic, yet it is almost logical, given the increasingly important place taken by the Orthodox Church and the religious dimension in Russian war propaganda.

"Religious War"

The idea of ​​a

religious war” against Ukrainians who, in addition to being Nazis, would also be “ 

 ” has long been confined to the most extreme margins of public discourse in Russia.

But in recent weeks, it has spread, then imposed in the mainstream media and in the words of some officials like former Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev.

In general, this concept is associated with considerations about the decadent and anti-religious West, the destruction of "traditional values".

It is in a real war of civilization that Russian propagandists now imagine themselves, a war to “  de-

 ” Ukraine.

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