Group of US lawmakers introduced bill on sanctions for "russia's war on faith" - Minister Sybiha

The head of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine Andrii Sybiha thanked a number of congressmen for introducing a bipartisan bill designed to counteract russia's war on religious freedoms.

Sybiha wrote about this on the social network X.

The minister emphasized that the adoption of such a law is a long-overdue necessity.

"Russia must bear responsibility for its systematic attacks on religious freedom. In the temporarily occupied territories of Ukraine, russia persecutes and kills clergy, destroys churches, bans entire religious communities and uses religion as a weapon to instill fear and control," Sybiha noted.

The bill, entitled "On Counteracting russia's War on Faith," was introduced by Republicans Joe Wilson, Brian Fitzpatrick and Don Bacon and Democrats Steve Cohen, Marcy Kaptur and Mike Quigley. A companion bill was introduced in the Senate by Senators John Kennedy and Sheldon Whitehouse.

This bipartisan bill would require the Secretary of State and the Secretary of Defense to jointly report on russia's actions to persecute, suppress, and violate the religious freedoms of faith communities in Ukraine and russian-occupied territories.

It would also require the President to impose sanctions on foreign nationals found to have participated in these actions.

Since russia's full-scale invasion began in 2022, more than 600 churches, synagogues, mosques, and other religious sites have been damaged or destroyed, and more than 50 Ukrainian clergy have been killed. Protestant, Catholic, Crimean Tatar, and Orthodox Christian communities outside the russian Orthodox Church have been subject to raids, forced re-registration, and criminal prosecution.

The russian Orthodox Church, led by Patriarch Kirill, publicly called the invasion a "holy war," providing ideological justification for systematic religious repression in the occupied territories.

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