Source: www.forum18.org
Date: June 10, 2025
https://www.forum18.org/archiv
By Felix Corley, Forum 18
On 8 June, as the Council of Churches Baptist congregation in Krasnodon in
Russian-occupied Luhansk Region was celebrating Pentecost, the deputy
prosecutor and police raided its Sunday morning worship meeting. "The main
issue is the registration of the church!" Pastor Vladimir Rytikov noted. "I
explained that for a number of reasons, we do not register. One of the
reasons is the duty of the pastor to report to the authorities about the
life of church members and about the service in the church, and this is
betrayal."
The congregation – like all Council of Churches Baptist congregations –
chooses not to seek official registration. The raid is part of increasing
pressure by Russian occupation authorities on their congregations' exercise
of freedom of religion or belief without officials' permission (see below).
Asked if she could explain why Krasnodon District Police took part in a
raid on the Baptist Church, the duty officer said only: "We can't." She
then put the phone down (see below).
Pastor Dmitry Malakhov, who leads the Council of Churches Baptist church in
Melitopol, rejects a court order that he should notify the Russian
authorities of his congregation's existence. The duty official at the
Russian-controlled Zaporizhzhia Regional Prosecutor's Office told Forum 18
that he was not able to discuss anything (see below).
On 30 May, Russian-controlled police raided the Council of Churches Baptist
church in Luhansk's Artyomovsky District. "The local police officer, acting
on the FSB's instructions and threatening to seal the church, demanded to
be told who is in charge and when church members gather," local Baptists
noted. Telephones went unanswered at the Russian-controlled Artyomovsky
District Police (see below).
The Russian occupation authorities have been seizing property owned by
Ukrainian individuals or organisations that they deem "ownerless". Among
them have been places of worship already seized from religious communities,
especially those the Russian regime does not like (see below).
In October 2024, the Russian occupation administration of Zaporizhzhia
Region included in a list of such property the Ukrainian Greek Catholic
Church of the Nativity of the Virgin Mary in Melitopol and the neighbouring
parish house. It described them as a "single-storey and two-storey
building, surrounding land (used for conducting religious rituals)" (see
below).
Masked Russian soldiers with automatic weapons seized the parish priest Fr
Oleksandr Bogomaz in December 2022 and expelled him from Russian-occupied
territory. Taking part in the raid was Artyom Sharlay (see below).
Sharlay, now the head of the Russian occupiers' Department for Work with
Ethnic, Religious and Cossack Organisations of the Social and Political
Communications Department of the Internal Policy Department of the
Russian-controlled Zaporizhzhia Regional Administration, did not answer his
phone each time Forum 18 called (see below).
Also listed as "ownerless" in occupied Zaporizhzhia Region in November 2024
was a building "formerly used by representatives of the Jehovah's Witness
religious organisation" and a "building of religious designation" in the
village of Derevetskoye (see below).
"Experts" appointed by Russia's Justice Ministry insist that an Orthodox
Brotherhood in Russian-occupied Luhansk Region provided "deliberately false
information that it operates as part of the Luhansk diocese of the
Ukrainian Orthodox Church, that is, a structure that does not in reality
exist". The "expert conclusion" concludes that because the Brotherhood's
documents were not reliable, "registration of the Brotherhood does not seem
expedient". The Brotherhood still has Russian registration, despite the
Expert Council's recommendation (see forthcoming F18News article).
In late April, Russian security officials reportedly visited at least one
church in the Russian-occupied part of Kherson Region. "The goal: to check
how exactly priests conduct the service and ‘hold conversations'," the
Yellow Ribbon civil resistance movement noted. "The reason is that one of
the local priests refused to mention the Russian military in a positive
context and did not justify the war against Ukraine during the Easter
service" (see forthcoming F18News article).
Russian-controlled courts are increasingly punishing individuals and
religious communities in occupied parts of Ukraine under Russia's
"anti-missionary" laws
(https://www.forum18.org/archi
Russian-controlled Budennovsk Inter-District Court in the occupied
Ukrainian city of Donetsk fined Council of Churches Baptist Pastor Vladimir
Rudomyotkin several days' average local wage for allegedly conducting
missionary activity. The fine came two days after the same court punished
the city's Roman Catholic parish.
Krasnodon: Prosecutor's Office, Police pressure Baptists to register
The Council of Churches Baptist congregation in the town of Krasnodon
[official Ukrainian name Sorokyne] in Russian-occupied Luhansk Region has
met in the same location since 1961. The Church has been led for some years
by Pastor Vladimir Rytikov. The congregation – like all Council of
Churches Baptist congregations – chooses not to seek official
registration.
The Soviet authorities jailed Vladimir Rytikov from 1979 to 1982 to punish
his involvement in a Christian children's summer camp. They also jailed his
father Pavel Rytikov, who spent more than a decade behind bars in the
Soviet Union to punish his exercise of freedom of religion and belief.
The now 65-year-old Pastor Rytikov and the Krasnodon Baptist congregation
have faced repeated pressure from Russian occupation forces in recent
years, including armed raids on their meetings for worship. The local court
has repeatedly fined Pastor Rytikov
(https://www.forum18.org/archi
congregation.
On 8 June 2025, the deputy prosecutor of Krasnodon raided the
congregation's Sunday morning meeting for worship. The official was
accompanied by police officers who arrived in at least two vehicles. The
Church was that day celebrating the festival of Pentecost and the Trinity.
After the service was over, the officials questioned Pastor Rytikov, as
well as the owner of the building where the Church meets and other church
members. "The main issue is the registration of the church!" Pastor Rytikov
noted the same day. "I explained that for a number of reasons, we do not
register. One of the reasons is the duty of the pastor to report to the
authorities about the life of church members and about the service in the
church, and this is betrayal."
Pastor Rytikov noted that he refused to sign the record of the
interrogation "because I have a principled attitude to this". He added that
"many times in my life, they deceived, wrote one thing, and then distorted
it".
Pastor Rytikov also noted that church members were collecting signatures on
petitions to the Russian authorities about the enforced closure of the
church building in Kurganinsk in Krasnodar Region of southern Russia on 16
May and violations of church members' rights elsewhere. "They photographed
them."
Officials also took one copy of each religious publication they could find,
photographed all the rooms and wrote descriptions of what they could see.
They then left.
Asked on 9 June if she could explain why Krasnodon District Police took
part in a raid on the Baptist Church the day before, the duty officer said
only: "We can't." She then put the phone down.
Oksana Shchebunyayeva, listed as Krasnodon's acting prosecutor, told Forum
18 on 9 June that she had retired on 30 April and therefore would not have
been involved in the Baptist case.
Melitopol: Baptist congregation rejects court's notification demand
The Council of Churches Baptist congregation in the Russian-occupied city
of Melitopol has faced further pressure. In October 2023, armed and masked
men in military uniform raided the Church's Sunday meeting for worship
(https://www.forum18.org/archi
nearly a year after the previous raid, men in masks "unexpectedly" arrived
again at the Council of Churches Baptist congregation In Melitopol and
broke up its meeting for worship. Armed, masked men in camouflage uniform
again invaded the church's Sunday meeting for worship in November 2024.
Its pastor, Dmitry Malakhov, who was interrogated twice in 2024, then faced
three administrative cases
(https://www.forum18.org/archi
the Judge at the Russian-controlled Melitopol Inter-District Court closed
the "illegal missionary activity" administrative case because of the
statute of limitations and issued a warning in the case of Pastor Malakhov
failing to notify the Russian authorities of the community's existence. The
Judge postponed the hearing on the third case - of failing to give the
organisation's full legal name.
The Deputy Prosecutor was dissatisfied with the warning to Pastor Malakhov
for failing to notify the Russian authorities of the community's existence.
He lodged a civil suit to court that "this violation creates the conditions
creates conditions for the emergence of an unfavourable crime situation in
the territory of the Zaporizhzhia region, which, in turn, may lead to the
violation of the rights and freedoms of an indefinite number of persons".
On 27 March, Judge Olga Chuveleva of the Russian-controlled Melitopol
Inter-District Court, supported the Deputy Prosecutor's civil suit. She
ordered the Church "in the person of Dmitry Gennadyevich Malakhov to inform
in writing about the start of activity by the body empowered to take a
decision on the registration of religious organisations" within one month
of the court decision entering legal force.
Pastor Malakhov disagreed with the court decision and lodged an appeal. "My
fellow-believers have never taken a decision, whether verbally or in
writing, to create a religious group and give it some kind of name," he
wrote. "All the more because in the notification of the start of a
religious group's activity, it is necessary to give information on the
bases of the religious belief, on places where services and other religious
rites and ceremonies are held, on the leader (representative) and on
individuals joining the religious group with their surnames, first names,
patronymics and residential addresses."
Pastor Malakhov said collecting and providing this personal information was
not in accordance with laws on the protection of personal data and the
guarantees of the right to freedom of conscience in Russia's Constitution,
which defend the right of individuals not to be forced to reveal any
religious beliefs.
"Thus, the court decision obliging Dmitry Malakhov to collect, process and
hand over personal data of his Christian friends contradicts the law on
personal data," local Baptists noted on 24 April.
The telephone of the Russian-controlled Melitopol Inter-District Court went
unanswered each time Forum 18 called on 9 and 10 June.
The duty official at the Russian-controlled Zaporizhzhia Regional
Prosecutor's Office told Forum 18 on 9 June that he was not able to discuss
anything.
Luhansk: Police officer threatens to seal Baptist church
On 30 May, Russian-controlled police raided the Council of Churches Baptist
church in Luhansk's Artyomovsky District. "The local police officer, acting
on the FSB's instructions and threatening to seal the church, demanded to
be told who is in charge and when church members gather," local Baptists
noted the same day.
Telephones went unanswered at the Russian-controlled Artyomovsky District
Police each time Forum 18 called between 3 and 10 June.
The church went ahead with Sunday worship in 1 June, local Baptists told
Forum 18.
Closing, seizing places of worship
Following the establishment of the Russian-backed Donetsk People's Republic
in 2014, the rebel authorities seized numerous places of worship
(https://www.forum18.org/archi
religious communities, including those belonging to Baptists, Jehovah's
Witnesses, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (commonly known
as Mormons), Seventh-day Adventists, Muslims, as well as Donetsk Christian
University. Rebel officials claim many were abandoned, but communities deny
this.
Following the full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022, the
occupation authorities seized many places of worship from communities they
did not like. These included Protestant churches forcibly closed and seized
(https://www.forum18.org/archi
Zaporizhzhia Region, including Grace Protestant Church, Melitopol Christian
Church, and Word of Life Church. The occupation authorities have used these
buildings for other purposes.
A new cinema – to be named Komsomolets – is nearing completion in the
seized Church of Good Changes, a Protestant church in Mariupol in
Russian-occupied Donetsk Region. Mariupol city administration seized the
church building (https://www.forum18.org/archi
2024 without compensation and began work turning it into a cinema.
Melitopol: Seized Greek Catholic Church, Jehovah's Witness Kingdom Hall
"ownerless"?
The Russian occupation authorities have been seizing property owned by
Ukrainian individuals or organisations that they deem "ownerless". Among
them have been places of worship already seized from religious communities,
especially those the Russian regime does not like.
Such "ownerless" property is often listed on occupation administrations'
websites, including in the Russian-occupied part of Zaporizhzhia Region. To
regain such property, an owner must present a current Russian passport,
documents authorising the individual to act in relation to the property,
and unspecified legal documents confirming ownership.
Artyom Sharlay, the head of the Russian occupiers' Department for Work with
Ethnic, Religious and Cossack Organisations of the Social and Political
Communications Department of the Internal Policy Department of the
Russian-controlled Zaporizhzhia Regional Administration, did not answer his
phone each time Forum 18 called between 3 and 9 June.
On 28 October 2024, the Russian occupation administration of Zaporizhzhia
Region included in a list of such property the Ukrainian Greek Catholic
Church of the Nativity of the Virgin Mary in Melitopol and the neighbouring
parish house. It gave the address – 83 Osipenko Street – and added
"single-storey and two-storey building, surrounding land (used for
conducting religious rituals)". Work on building the church began in 2010
and was completed in 2011.
Russian occupation forces have expelled the parish's priests from territory
they control and the Russian-controlled administration does not recognise
the parish's legal status granted by the Ukrainian authorities in 2010.
Masked Russian soldiers with automatic weapons seized parish priest Fr
Oleksandr Bogomaz (https://www.forum18.org/archi
2 December 2022. "The interrogation went on for an hour," he told the Greek
Catholic television channel Zhyve days after his release. "They loaded me
into a car, took me to Vasylivka, and then I walked to our territory."
On 25 November 2022, Russian forces had detained another Greek Catholic
priest in Melitopol, Fr Peter Krenický, the parish priest of the Greek
Catholic Assumption of Saint Anna Church. They released him the same day,
but forced him to leave for Ukrainian government-held territory
(https://www.forum18.org/archi
Among those present in December 2022 when Russian officials searched the
church and Fr Oleksandr's home was Artyom Sharlay, the priest told the Kyiv
Independent for the documentary film "No God But Theirs"
(https://www.youtube.com/watch
2025.
Sharlay was the only one of the raiders not wearing a mask. "He looked
through the literature we had there," Fr Oleksandr recalled.
On 21 November 2024, the Russian occupation administration of Zaporizhzhia
Region listed as "ownerless" a "non-residential building" in the settlement
of Kuibyshevo, adding "formerly used by representatives of the Jehovah's
Witness religious organisation". A "building of religious designation" in
the village of Derevetskoye was also included in the list.
Russia's Supreme Court declared all Jehovah's Witness organisations
"extremist" and banned them
(https://www.forum18.org/archi
occupation authorities are also imposing this ban
(https://www.forum18.org/archi
they occupy. (END)
More reports on freedom of thought, conscience and belief in Occupied
Ukraine (https://www.forum18.org/archi
For background information, see Forum 18's Occupied Ukraine religious
freedom survey (https://www.forum18.org/archi
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