Russia’s war has fully ruined 183 religious sites in Ukraine

From February 24 to July 23, 2022, at least 183 religious sites in 14 regions of Ukraine were fully or partly ruined by the aggressive attack of the Russian Federation.

According to the State Service for Ethnic Affairs and Freedom of Conscience, the lists includes churches, mosques, synagogues, educational and administrative buildings of Ukraine’s religious communities.

Five of the 183 sites ruined or damaged by the Russian attacks are Muslim, five are Jewish, and the other 173 are Christian.

The monitoring conducted by the State Service of Ukraine for Ethnic Affairs and Freedom of Conscience (DESS) in cooperation with the Workshop for the Academic Study of Religion further indicates 22 of the sites affected belong to various Protestant communities, 19 to the Orthodox Church of Ukraine (OCU), 3 to the Roman Catholic Church and 2 to the Greek Catholic Church.

73% (127 sites) of all 173 Christian sites that got fully or partially ruined by the Russian attack belong to the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (UOC).

The largest number of damaged religious sites are in Donetsk (45) and Luhansk (40) regions followed by Kyiv (34) and Kharkiv (25) regions.