Baptists persecuted in temporarily occupied and uncontrolled territories of Donetsk and Luhansk regions

Large-scale repressions and persecution of believers on religious grounds continue in the temporarily occupied and uncontrolled territories of Donetsk and Luhansk regions.

Novorossiia website published information that the “Ministry of State Security in the territory of the Luhansk People's Republic” suppressed the destructive activity of an extremist religious organization “All-Ukrainian Union of Churches of the Evangelical Christians of the Baptists”. This religious organization with the center in Kyiv was avoiding the compulsory state registration, carried out destructive activities on the territory of the Republic.”

Further it was reported, “In addition, the religious association advanced the idea of ​​the seizure of the Republic by the armed forces of Ukraine, and also maintained close ties with representatives of Ukrainian nationalist armed formations. To achieve their goals, the representatives of the All-Ukrainian Union of Evangelical Christians of the Baptists in the territory of the LNR subjected their parishioners to psychological effects with the use of psychotropic drugs.”

“Even in the most terrible times of the persecution of believers in the USSR, those who organized persecution and repressions could not boast such a paranoid fantasy,” religious historian Ihor Kozlovsky, who had been imprisoned by militants of the so-called Donetsk People's Republic for two years, commented to Novorossiia’s message on his Facebook page.

“The phrase “extremist Baptists” can be uttered only by a completely sick person or an incurable fool. The ignorance in religious matters causes a sleep of reason and becomes the cause of human tragedies. We must not forget that awareness in religious matters and humanities is, in general, a necessary component of our national security. And all crimes in the occupied territories of the Ukrainian Donbas, including on religious grounds, are largely due to the total ignorance that is characteristic to this region (and not only) on the daily life level. And the revanchist ideology of the "Russian world", which again and again plays a religious card in our country, constantly manipulates with this fact. And people suffer,” Ihor Kozlovsky wrote.