By Konstantinos Menyktas
In its 2025 Annual Report, the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) dedicates a detailed chapter to Russia, denouncing the country’s deteriorating record on religious freedom throughout 2024.
The report documents systematic repression, arbitrary detentions, and growing state hostility toward religious minorities, both within Russia and in Russian-occupied territories.
In territories under Russian occupation, violations were even more severe. Russian forces and de facto authorities “banned religious groups, criminalized religious materials, and raided houses of worship,” according to USCIRF. The report cites cases of Ukrainian clergy being abducted, tortured, or imprisoned. In February, Russian forces reportedly abducted and tortured to death Orthodox Church of Ukraine priest Stepan Podolchak. In August, a court sentenced Orthodox Church of Ukraine (OCU) priest Kostiantyn Maksimov to 14 years for alleged espionage after he refused to transfer his parish to the Moscow Patriarchate.
Ukrainian NGOs have documented widespread destruction: “hundreds of religious sites” have reportedly been damaged or destroyed since the beginning of the full-scale invasion in 2022.
Authorities also escalated their enforcement of so-called blasphemy laws, using them to prosecute perceived insults to religion or religious texts.
The repression extended to civil society. The report details how the government punished independent voices documenting religious rights abuses. In February, Oleg Orlov, co-chair of Memorial, received a prison sentence of two and a half years for his outspoken criticism of Russia’s war in Ukraine. Under Orlov’s leadership, Memorial had actively defended and documented cases of religious prisoners in Russia and occupied Crimea.
The crackdown also targeted dissenting clergy. “In April, a court fined 87-year-old Orthodox Archbishop Viktor Pivovarov 150,000 rubles ($1,553) for calling the invasion ‘satanic,’” the report notes.
One of the report’s key concerns centers on the persecution of Muslims, particularly Crimean Tatars in occupied Crimea. According to the human rights organization Memorial, “at least 352 people were in prison, faced prosecution, or were under investigation for alleged HT affiliation.” Among them, 131 individuals received prison sentences ranging from 10 to 14 years, while 119 were sentenced to 15 years or more.
It is recalled that the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) devoted a separate chapter to the religious situation in Ukraine in its 2025 annual report.
Other religious groups persecuted
“Religious freedom conditions in the Russian Federation remained poor,” the report states bluntly. The findings highlight the persistent targeting of Muslims, Jehovah’s Witnesses, and other minority religious groups under vague and politically motivated extremism laws.
USCIRF notes that Muslim prisoners reported “experiencing torture, medical neglect, forced beard shavings, the confiscation of religious materials, prayer bans, pork-filled food, and other ill treatment.”
Jehovah’s Witnesses, long a target of Russian religious policy, also suffered intensified repression. The report mentions that in June, courts handed down record sentences: “Jehovah’s Witnesses Nikolai Polevodov received eight years and six months, Vitaliy Zhuk eight years and four months, and Stanislav Kim eight years and two months in prison.” Around 150 Jehovah’s Witnesses were reportedly enduring detention, forced labor, or imprisonment by the end of 2024.
