A Ukrainian researcher has told a US human rights commission that the Russian Orthodox Church Moscow Patriarchate is complicit in the deportation and alleged indoctrination of Ukrainian children.
Vladyslav Havrylov, a Kyiv-born fellow at Georgetown University, gave a written and oral testimony to the US Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) during a hearing on religious persecution of children on Thursday.
He claimed the Church has worked alongside the Russian state in the “forcible transfer, deportation, adoption, and reeducation” of Ukrainian children into Russian territory, placing them in church-run homes, monasteries and camps.
Havrylov also said Russia has documented more than 20,000 Ukrainian children taken since the full-scale invasion in 2022, though the true number could be far higher, with only around 2,000 reportedly returned.
USCIRF heard that church-linked structures had coordinated with Russian state agencies in what was described as “evacuations” from occupied areas, and had helped facilitate accommodation and transport networks for displaced civilians.
"Among the documented locations of deported Ukrainian children are church institutions of the Russian Orthodox Church, including the Assumption Monastery of the Tver Diocese, the diocesan mother and child center in Belgorod, and the Kovalevsky orphanage of the Kostroma Diocese," he said."The scale of the ROC's logistical involvement in the deportation process is documented through leaked internal communications."
Havrylov added the Church was operating “like an institution of the Russian government, not like a church”.
The Russian Orthodox Church Moscow Patriarchate has not responded publicly to the allegations.The hearing also heard testimony on persecution of children in China, Pakistan and Myanmar.
