Volodymyr Zelenskyy's actions appear to stem from the Soviet Union's use of KGB agents to infiltrate the church in order to gain information on political dissident, one expert says.
, president of Doctrine & Strategy Consulting and a former Defense Intelligence Agency officer, said that Zelenskyy’s move to restrict the church is unsurprising, since it is a move out of the Russian playbook to control information. KGB agents heavily infiltrated the church during the Soviet Union in order to use religion as a"weapon against political opposition."
Russian Orthodox Church Patriarch Kirill conducts the Easter service at the Christ the Savior Cathedral in Moscow on Saturday, April 23. "Back during these service days, the KGB penetrated the church at large and would use it to basically identify any kind of dissent, any kind of opposition," Koffler explained, calling it a form of statecraft.
"They would strike up relationships with priests, and the priests basically would report to the KGB on anyone who was perceived as disloyal to Soviet authorities, because when a person comes to confess, they tell them their views."Koffler said the Ukrainian security services have gone into churches affiliated with the Russian Orthodox Church and conducted raids to interrogate priests and arrest them on suspicion of providing information to Russia.
"On the one hand, Zelenskyy is trying to prevent what he perceives as the spread of Russian influence within Ukraine," Koffler said."But he is using Soviet KGB tactics to do that."Zelenskyy has waited to execute this move, because it was something of a last resort as Russia hits Ukraine’s infrastructure harder, and he
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