Alexey Pavlov, Assistant Secretary of the Security Council of the Russian Federation, Nikolai Patrushev, published an article in Arguments and Facts under the heading “What is cooked in the witch’s cauldron. Neo-pagan cults have gained strength in Ukraine.” This publication was immediately reported by TASS, RIA Novosti and other Kremlin propaganda outlets. Pavlov says :
“Since the 1990s. in Ukraine, the number of adherents of religious sects multiplied. A powerful impetus for this was the coup d'état in Kyiv in 2014. The executors, who were placed in positions of power by Washington, carried out the tasks that were pouring in from across the ocean.
One of them is to reformat the minds of Ukrainian citizens, to force them to abandon centuries-old traditions, to ban the real values that are carried by the Orthodox faith, Islam and Judaism. Using network manipulations and psychotechnologies, the new authorities turned Ukraine from a state into a totalitarian hypersect. Moreover, those in power in Kyiv were the first to turn into militant fanatics, whose views are directly opposite to the views of normal people.
For example, who became and. about. President of Ukraine after the coup d'état Oleksandr Turchynov is the pastor of the Word of Life Neo-Pentecostal Church, a branch of the Boston movement Church of Christ, which has a single word for Donbass, Odessa, Kharkov, Zaporozhye and other regions of historical New Russia – "death". The first “post-Maidan” Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk is a Hubbardist, a follower of the Church of Scientology, banned in Russia as a totalitarian sect. Igor Kolomoisky is a Lubavitcher Hasid, Chabadist, an adherent of the ultra-Orthodox religious movement. The main life principle of the Lubavitcher Hasidim is the superiority of the supporters of the sect over all nations and peoples. A number of other Ukrainian oligarchs also belong to this movement, in particular Viktor Pinchuk, the son-in-law of the second President of Ukraine Kuchma, the author of the book “Ukraine is not Russia”. <…>
The exact number of sects in Ukraine is unknown, but the number is in the hundreds. <…> Among them are the Association of Rodnovers of Ukraine, "Rodobozhie", "White Hammer", "Perun's Army", "Mokosha", "White Hort", "Great Fire", "Grandchildren of Veles", etc. This hodgepodge of Svarog, Dazhdbog, Veles and Perun are held together by tracing paper from the neo-pagan cults of the Third Reich, as well as terry nationalism, hiding behind the search for the “true ancient faith.”
Pavlov ends his text with the following passage:
“I believe that with the continuation of the special military operation, it becomes more and more urgent to carry out the de-Satanization of Ukraine, or, as the head of the Chechen Republic Ramzan Kadyrov aptly put it, its “complete de-Satanization”.”
The communities of adherents of the ancient Slavic pagan cult in Ukraine are really numerous, but for some reason Pavlov does not pay attention to similar associations in Russia, where the Union of Slavic Communities of the Slavic Native Faith, the Commonwealth of Slavic Rodnoverie Communities “Veles Circle”, “Circle of Pagan Tradition” operate quite legally, Fund "Rodnoverie" and similar organizations.
But what is especially interesting in Pavlov's text is the fragment where he denounces Ukrainian political leaders, though not the current ones; former Acting President Oleksandr Turchynov and former Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk have long been in opposition, Igor Kolomoisky, who supported Volodymyr Zelensky’s presidential campaign in 2019, has recently, according to some reports, been deprived of Ukrainian citizenship and is also under US sanctions, and billionaire Viktor Pinchuk retired from politics.
The main thing, however, is not this. The Word of Life Church, to which Turchinov belongs, is one of the neo-Pentecostal Protestant churches, created in the 1980s in Sweden and has branches in many countries of the world, including Russia, where it is completely legal ; in Moscow alone she has two church buildings. It has nothing to do with the Boston "Church of Christ", which is referred to as the so-called biblical fundamentalism.
The "Church of Scientology", created by the American writer Lafayette Ron Hubbard, does have a controversial reputation in the world and is sometimes regarded as a totalitarian sect. In Russia, several of its organizations are banned, but in December 2021 the ECtHR recognized the ban as a violation of freedom of conscience, freedom of expression, and freedom of assembly and association. However, Yatsenyuk calls himself a parishioner of the Greek Catholic Church, and the allegations spread online about his belonging to Scientologists are not confirmed by anything. One of these "revelations" was based on the fact that Yatsenyuk's sister Alina, who married an American, lives with him in California and is engaged in real estate sales, at one time worked in the Church of Scientology in Santa Barbara.
And Pavlov tells absolutely amazing things in connection with businessmen Kolomoisky and Pinchuk. Lubavitcher Hasidim is a widespread trend in Judaism. President of the Federation of Jewish Communities, member of the Public Chamber of the Russian Federation Alexander Boroda and Chief Rabbi of Russia Berl Lazar belong to him. By decree of Vladimir Putin, Boroda was awarded the Order of Friendship in 2016, and Lazar in 2014 – the Order of Merit for the Fatherland, IV degree.
So it seems that Pavlov was going to “desatanize” the wrong country.