Incense for 95 Million Dollars — How the Russian Church Recruits Ukrainian Refugees in the Heart of Europe

What is the Russian Orthodox Church doing in EU countries, what role does the UOC-MP play in its activities, and what are the current and potential long-term consequences of this “work” for Ukrainian refugees, for Ukraine, and for the European Union?

This is the subject of a study by the Institute of National Resilience and Security, “The ROC in Europe: infrastructure of Russian influence,” which covered five EU countries. To discuss what the study revealed, RUSI spoke with its initiator, head of the sociological research laboratory of the Institute, Doctor of Sociology Kateryna Nastoiascha.

Kateryna Nastoiascha

“We evacuated about 2,5 thousand people — and we didn’t lose contact with them…”

— Ms. Kateryna, how was this large study conducted?

— We combined two types of research: qualitative interviews and analytical research. We recorded 100 in-depth interviews in 5 EU countries: France, Germany, Poland, Italy, and Belgium. Each interview lasted from 40 minutes to an hour and a half. In-depth interviews make it possible to understand motives, reasons, intentions, fears. We also studied the information available to date on the topic that appears in reports from various analytical centers and intelligence data.

I should note immediately: in-depth interviews are not a representative survey of all refugees; their purpose is to identify mechanisms, motivations, and typical scenarios that later require quantitative verification.

— How did the idea for this study arise?

— The topic grew out of practice. Our NGO “Democratic Youth Initiatives” has been evacuating people from dangerous regions of Ukraine since 2022: we evacuated about 2,5 thousand people, including to Germany. We kept in touch with some of those evacuated and have already conducted a number of studies on their adaptation abroad.

Later we began cooperating with the Institute of National Resilience and Security, for which studying Russian hybrid influence is a statutory task. The idea arose to add a separate block on Russian influence to the study of refugee adaptation. And as soon as we began asking these questions, a lot of interesting cases came to light.

At the same time, we studied the issue systematically: using materials from various analytical centers such as the Atlantic Council, FPRI, CEPA, NATO Policy Forum and others; OSINT investigations — The Insider, Molfar Institute, NewsGuard, etc.; intelligence data — SBU, RNC NSDC, Council of the EU, FOI Sweden, and others; and church registries World Orthodox Directory, OrthodoxWiki, directory.synod.com, which are publicly available. Dynamics, precedents, and statistics began to emerge.

It was important to understand the motives of the people themselves. We observed the religious situation among refugees and realized that the UOC-MP mostly works with them; it has learned to adapt and calls itself a Ukrainian Church. We wanted to understand this, and so the idea to conduct this research arose. I note that every figure in it is supported by references.

“If they don’t say which Russian soldiers they pray for, then they must mean ours…”

— You said the UOC-MP has learned to adapt. Does this mimicry occur only in the UOC or in the ROC as well?

— This mainly concerns the UOC-MP. The UOC has no official jurisdiction in the EU; it operates under Moscow’s patronage. It tries to maintain its influence over our refugees abroad, and so calls itself by different names with emphasis on the word “Ukrainian,” for example, “Ukrainian Orthodox community.” It switched to the Ukrainian language, stopped mentioning Kirill — only Onufriy. And people find it harder to understand what kind of church it is and whom it serves.

Interestingly, in Italy UOC-MP communities sometimes present themselves as a Romanian church. That is, the UOC in various ways tries to avoid demonstrating its ties to the Russian church in order to broaden potential influence across different target audiences.

— Are all Ukrainian refugees ready to be subjected to this influence?

— On the fifth year of the full-scale war we observe a positive trend — our people have started to figure out which church is Russian. After all, there they praise Kirill, speak Russian, pray for “fallen defenders” without specifying which ones. Our refugees have begun to leave these churches.

An interesting case was in a small town in Thuringia. Many people went to church there and noticed that the priest was somewhat aggressive, preaching “for the brotherly people,” “for peace.” People put up with it, but later rebelled and wrote to the city council that it was a Russian church. The priest was then “asked” to leave. He started sending letters in Russian to the town halls of neighboring towns asking for premises to hold services, claiming he was from a Ukrainian church. Several towns provided premises. He celebrated holidays there, but was expelled from those places as well.

However, unfortunately this is not a mass phenomenon. If he had been more adaptable, spoken Ukrainian, and not mentioned Kirill, our people would still be standing and listening.

— So, when services are in Ukrainian, it’s much harder for people to recognize [the church’s affiliation]?

— Yes. For example, in Italy a young, educated woman, a patriot and volunteer, described herself as an active parishioner of the “Ukrainian church” — the UOC-MP — because, she said, they celebrate in Ukrainian, don’t mention Kirill, and collect money for the army. They pray for fallen soldiers. And if they don’t say which Russian soldiers they mean, then they must mean ours. She plays the role of a defense lawyer for that church to justify attending: they say they have rethought everything and become patriots.

“I didn’t look whose patriarch it was. I walked in — and there was a church, icons, a priest…”

— Are there cases when Ukrainian refugees began attending specifically a Russian Orthodox church?

— We recorded such cases in Hamburg, Düsseldorf and a number of other cities in Germany, Italy, and Belgium. Not out of ideology, but due to familiarity, free assistance, and a lack of nearby Ukrainian alternatives. In our study we identified concepts such as “normalized paradox” and “sounds of home.”

“Normalized paradox” is when a person understands they attend a Russian church but rationalizes it. They normalize the negative situation in their consciousness. A classic example: a woman from Kharkiv says that when the church prays for Kirill, she prays for Onufriy at that moment — essentially hiding her real feelings. We also encountered beliefs like: “Yes, I attend this church because I have nowhere else to go, but I still donate to Ukraine, volunteer. I believe in God, and God is above politics.” The “normalized paradox” is also the case of the volunteer woman in Italy who justified her activity at a UOC-MP parish by saying “they celebrate in Ukrainian and pray not for Kirill but for fallen soldiers.”

— And what are the “sounds of home”?

— That’s when a person perceives something as native through certain markers. A person enters a temple, sees that it’s ROC, but it strongly reminds them of home. The same chants, the same smell of incense, the same liturgy, the same priestly vestments. The person is switched on emotionally. The awareness that it is pro-Russian fades; emotions kick in and it becomes very difficult to consciously distance oneself and recognize that it is simply a multilayered cover, masking an enemy.

When a person becomes emotionally involved and attends a service once, twice, three or four times, the equation “temple = rockets” no longer works. For them the temple has already become a place of strength, a source of positive emotions. Rockets are a negative emotion and, they say, have nothing to do with the temple. Yet the church may have strange sermons, collections for unknown purposes, Telegram channels with a lot of information…

— Can we say that if a person attended the UOC-MP in Ukraine, the ROC seems familiar to them?

— Absolutely. People note that they go to the Russian church because it is mentally close to them. One woman now living in Italy said in an interview: “It smells of incense the same way here, they sing the same as at home. You close your eyes — and you are home. Is that politics?” A woman in Germany said: “I didn’t check whose patriarch it was. I went in — and there was a church, icons, a priest. I thought: mine. Only later my daughter said they were commemorating Kirill.” And a lady in Belgium emphasized: “Someone literally wrote to me: don’t go to that church, it’s the FSB. But where else can I go if it’s the only one nearby?”

They understand that it’s a Russian church and that attending it isn’t ideal. But, as if by rote, they repeat: the church is above politics, we simply pray to God.

“If a new person comes to the temple, a figure with a notebook will surely approach them…”

— Do they really only pray to God there?

— Not only. We encountered interesting cases when people in the church were asked: “Do you have acquaintances in the military? Please give us their contacts. We will help them; the whole parish will collect money and send aid. We will send a whole bag or even two trucks — just give us your military contacts!”

If a new person comes to the temple, a figure with a notebook will surely approach them and ask about them. The parish network collects personal data of Ukrainian refugees offline and online. Our respondents reported that at some UOC-MP parishes in Berlin services are videotaped and photographed. We don’t know where this information goes, but given the background of Russian special services, we can assume there is a risk these data are passed on to intelligence services.

— Are parishioner data collected in UOC-MP communities or in the ROC?

— I want to emphasize that information about the collection of personal data of our citizens in churches has been recorded not only by us but also by Ukraine’s Foreign Intelligence Service: its head publicly stated that Russian intelligence services, through the network of Moscow Patriarchate churches abroad, recruit Ukrainian refugees and under the guise of charity build databases. It is noted that the UOC-MP is responsible for this.

— Were there cases where ROC priests helped find premises and generally supported development of these UOC parishes?

— Of course, they actively cooperate. But premises are not provided exactly by priests. I’ll explain the algorithm for creating a new UOC-MP parish. First, a network coordinator scouts and identifies the presence and number of Ukrainian refugees in a city. Then they find premises for ritual activities, buy or rent them. They organize repairs, bring everything necessary for rites. They bring a UOC-MP priest. They register the community. Refugees are invited to the “Ukrainian” parish…

The only positive nuance I would note is that Moscow receives reports claiming a large number of refugees have been engaged and are actively cooperating, and asking for more funds to expand the network. But this is not true, thank God. Because in the 5 year of the war not all refugees fell under this influence. Some were able to figure things out, leave in time, choose another path — 2–3 hours’ drive to a chaplaincy of the OCU, or switching to the Greek Catholic Church, or to Ukrainian Protestants, who are also active abroad.

“What difference does it make? The church is under God, not under the president…”

— In the study you note that “public organizations” operate at UOC parishes that supposedly provide assistance to Ukrainian refugees but under the guise of this help do something quite the opposite. How does this happen?

— Russia does not always influence through direct propaganda. Its influence does not always have obvious signs of threat. It operates through trust, humanitarian aid, religious practice and a sense of community, educational initiatives, and information channels — through the environments where people seek support, anchor points, and safety.

It’s important to remember that our refugees are very vulnerable because they feel a triple frustration: “a stranger in a strange land,” “dequalification,” and “anxiety from the war.” Additionally, they feel abandoned by Ukraine, a narrative the enemy stokes: “we’re nobody, we’re going nowhere, no one needs us.” This causes yet another stress.

And then someone comes and says: “How cute and smart you are! Here, have a bun, eat it. Would you like us to arrange art classes for your kids, for free? Here’s a jacket sewn just for you!” And the person thinks: “So I’m needed here, I was noticed, I’m valued, they see that I matter.” That’s how they work with our people: through legal and humanitarian aid, work with children, psychological trainings.

For example, in Portugal there was a Russian public organization “Rodina.” With the start of the full-scale war and the arrival of many Ukrainians, the organization rebranded to “Rodyna.” They began actively helping Ukrainians: saying that only Putin is to blame and that they are against the war. They claim Ukrainians and Russians are brothers; only their rulers quarreled like cockroaches in a jar. And we, the simple people, will understand each other because we share interests and roots.

Similar organizations exist in Germany. The Russian-speaking diaspora there is the largest in the world: according to a German microcensus, people from the post-Soviet space and their descendants number about 3,5 million (excluding Ukrainian refugees who arrived after 2022), and approximately 2 million of them actively use Russian. At the same time, holders of Russian passports in Germany number, according to Destatis, only about 270 thousand. And our Ukrainian refugees are 1 million 275 thousand. Russians already have a developed social structure; ours do not yet. But our people mostly use common sense. They usually don’t go when they see an organization is Russian. But they go to churches because the sign says “Ukrainian church,” and they trust the sign.

One Russian NGO of post-Soviet origin in a large city in western Germany interestingly rebranded itself as Ukrainian with the arrival of Ukrainians. It organizes free children’s activities — drawing, sculpting. Parents obediently bring their children. Soon the NGO leader is elected to the city council because she helps Ukrainians. And it doesn’t matter that she has a background aiding the “DPR.”

Another interesting case occurred in a city in Saxony. In a long-established Ukrainian organization a new bookkeeper appeared. Changes began. Russian books appeared in the library. Then a Russian psychologist came as a “world-class specialist” who works with children with special needs. They advertised it. Parents attended the psychologist’s lectures, and he convinced them that “you need to go to God and then your children will be healthy.” He said there is a church in our town, go there, there is the word of God. There’s no Ukrainian church, only a Russian one, but what difference does it make? The church is under God, not under the president…

Primate of the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad Metropolitan Savva with his old companion Kirill Gundyaev

“The ROC in Poland is practically absent, yet influence exists…”

— So it looks like abroad the UOC-MP and the ROC act as a single entity?

— Undoubtedly. Analysis of media, analytical materials, and press releases from the Foreign Intelligence Service shows this. These two structures function as a single organism, one network, with a single center of funding. And today this network is actively expanding primarily via the UOC-MP. In 2023 year there were officially 83 UOC-MP parishes recorded in the EU. By 2026 year that number had grown to more than 120.

In recent years many UOC-MP priests left for EU countries. Most of them joined the construction of the UOC-MP network abroad; a smaller portion joined diaspora Ukrainian jurisdictions.

— The ROC probably uses not only the UOC, but other Orthodox structures as well? What is the architecture of the ROC’s presence in the EU?

— This architecture is complex and consists of three institutional branches. There is the Russian Orthodox Church (ROC) itself; the Russian Orthodox Church Outside Russia (ROCOR), which Moscow subordinated in 2007 year; and the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate, which is now actively scaling in Europe. If we add together the number of parishes of these branches in the EU, we get an impressive figure: at least 560, and including unregistered communities — 660 ROC centers in EU countries. And if we add satellite churches, for example, the Bulgarian and Serbian Orthodox Churches, as well as legally independent structures that are in fact oriented toward Moscow, the number exceeds 1000. It is important to emphasize: canonical, cultural, or organizational ties to Russian church structures do not by themselves prove the participation of a particular community, priest, or believer in activities benefiting Russian special services — our research focuses on risks, network links, and documented mechanisms of influence.

For example, the ROC is practically absent in Poland, yet influence exists. The Orthodox field in the country is held by the Polish Autocephalous Orthodox Church (PAOC). It has 257 parishes and half a million believers. Legally it is autocephalous, but on the issue of Ukrainian autocephaly it sided with Moscow, serves in Church Slavonic and Russian, and after 2022 year UOC-MP priests appeared in its structures. Our refugees go there because it’s “almost like home.”

“An eight-headed octopus operates through a wide network of diverse structures…”

— Your study also covers France, Belgium, and Italy. What is the Russian influence like there? Is there perhaps a “church” influence on political and government structures?

— We measured this influence, analyzing the strength of influence across various spheres and sectors. At least at the time of our research, Poland was under the least influence. Italy was under the most. Various spheres of life in Italy have long and deeply been affected by Russian influence. The director of our Institute of National Resilience and Security, Rena Marutyan, spoke in the Italian parliament about the presence of Russian influence. It was telling that during her speech some participants demonstratively left the hall. An Italian journalist analyzed Russian influence in Italian educational literature and found that 62 textbooks, of which 28 are schoolbooks, contain narratives of Russian propaganda. They state, for example, that Crimea is Russia, that Ukraine is a poor agrarian country, and that Russia is a great country with great culture.

The Russian Church of St. Catherine is located behind St. Peter’s Basilica, on the hill near the Russian embassy. It is surrounded by a huge fence with barbed wire and perimeter cameras. I was there and saw this very strange church with my own eyes. What struck me most was that its schedule was in Russian and there was a Ukrainian contact phone number for the curator.

— Fantastic! And what about France?

— In France there are many kinds of Russian events and festivals. Russians constantly try to penetrate Ukrainian organizations there, to hold joint events like “Odessa Day.” They tried to impose Russian “chanson” on our people. There was a scandal. Our NGOs usually raise the alarm and stop such activities.

Two years ago Molfar Intelligence conducted an analytical study on the influence of the Russian Church in 11 European countries. Among other things, it examined the ROC’s Trinity Cathedral in Paris, a few hundred meters from the Eiffel Tower. The land for it was bought by Russians for about 70 million euros. This is one of the largest ROC overseas complexes — a cathedral with a spiritual-cultural center. Church services are held there, and among the cathedral’s frequent guests is the Russian ambassador to France…

When we combined and analyzed our in-depth interviews and analytical reports from various intelligence and analytical centers studying this topic, we saw a coherent picture: a single organism, an eight-headed octopus operating through a wide network of diverse structures, sometimes small. These are church parishes, public organizations, various socio-political movements that cooperate with one another, and various proxy structures through which financing occurs.

ROC cathedral in Paris near the Eiffel Tower

“Sanctions don’t work against Russian church structures…”

— By the way, how is Russia, which is under sanctions and whose people, according to some Europeans, “suffer from the war,” still able to allocate enormous funding to support and coordinate its religious network in many countries?

— Currently most funding goes to the church because it is legal, unlike media and “Russian houses.” The total expenses for the ROC’s overseas network amount to $60–95 million per year. By the way, financing goes along three different lines. The first is official, through Russian state structures: the Russian budget, the Russkiy Mir Foundation, the Gorchakov Fund, Rossotrudnichestvo, and state corporations Rosatom and Gazprom, as well as the Vasily the Great Konstantin Malofeev Fund, the Andrew the First-Called Vladimir Yakunin Fund, structures of Vadim Novinsky, etc. The second line is semi-shadow schemes, and the third is fully shadow schemes that are hard to trace: via crypto, offshore accounts, and proxy structures.

— I assume Russian church property abroad is also a grand asset and a source of significant income…

— Exactly. We often forget and do not highlight this. We talk about sanctions, oil problems, and how soon poor unfortunate Russians will run out of funds to finance their influence network in Europe. But it is worth remembering how many real estate objects of the Russian Orthodox Church Outside Russia are currently subordinated to Moscow.

ROCOR owns large capital assets estimated at 150–180 million euros. These are cathedrals and real estate that Russia rents out and gains profit from. Let us not forget that in 2007 the pro-Russian Italian prime minister Silvio Berlusconi approved the transfer of the Orthodox compound in Bari to Russia and symbolic keys were presented to then-Russian president Medvedev in 2009, and in 2010–2011 French courts recognized Russia’s ownership of St. Nicholas Cathedral in Nice. These cathedrals were built with funds from White émigrés and once belonged to ROCOR.

When we speak of Russia’s hybrid war, we know it includes political, economic, informational, and diplomatic aspects, and many of these aspects are subject to sanctions. There are sanctions against Russian oligarchs, against Russian information resources like Russia Today, and so on. But sanctions against Russian church structures do not work. Because the European democratic community believes religion falls squarely under human rights, freedom of conscience, and the like. Russia often uses Europe’s democratic principles, seeing them as a weakness.

“There has appeared an opportunity to reach about 2 million voters…”

— You say that Russian media in the EU are under sanctions. But somehow Russia is still processing the information space of Ukrainian refugees?

— Yes, we understand that narratives rooted in emotions of disappointment or the conviction that “we must make peace with Russia” reach our refugees from these sources. Propaganda drips into people’s minds in portions and systematically. As one woman said in an in-depth interview: “Everyone repeats: everyone steals, why support the state? Drop by drop and people begin to believe.”

After 2022 year the Kremlin’s propaganda infrastructure adapted to sanctions faster than state media. Since 2023 year Russia has massively strengthened in the information space. Media have largely moved into the digital space, into AI, into bot farms. Church digital channels are part of a unified system of influence. 9 of 27 sanctioned Russian resources are available on Telegram. They mobilize pro-Russian activists. There are also “Orthodox” apps — “Molitvoslov”/“SPAS” (5+ million), “OrthodoxWiFi,” Telegram bots. Church-style naming is observed across 100+ Telegram channels.

A powerful network of information resources called Pravda Network (“Portal Kombat”) methodically promotes Russian narratives in Europe. It was created by Crimean IT entrepreneur Yevhen Shevchenko (company TigerWeb), who was added to the EU sanctions list in 2025. Pravda Network comprises about 150 domains, 3,6 million articles over 2024 (about 10 thousand per day), targets 49 countries and dozens of languages. The goal of this flood of texts is to “poison” the training data for artificial intelligence. NewsGuard researchers called this LLM grooming. As a result, chatbots sometimes reproduce Kremlin narratives: if someone queries in Russian about Ukraine or what the OCU is, there is a significant risk of getting what the Kremlin thinks about the OCU.

— Essentially, there is a huge unified information system operating in Europe?

— Yes, it is a single network through which information, money, data collection and recruitment coordination pass very quickly. And now, in addition to the primary diversionary and intelligence mission, they have the task of specifically targeting our refugees in the EU. That is 4 million 370 thousand people.

— So they could turn our refugees into agents of influence? But influence over what exactly?

— Here’s how. In several years a portion of Ukrainians who decide not to return home will become EU citizens. They will receive European passports and thus the right to vote. Accordingly, they could become an electoral constituency for some candidate. I’ll say cautiously: prolonged work with vulnerable communities creates an environment for future political mobilization, while direct electoral effects require separate measurement. But the Russians are already working to form this field for their interests. In every EU country there are pro-Russian parties. They need people loyal to Moscow’s decisions. Now there is an opportunity to reach a large and tempting slice — potentially up to 2 million voters. Moreover, mainly women with children left. And children grow up…

— Are children already being “processed”?

— Of course! I have an acquaintance in Germany. Her daughter once came back from a free sculpting class at a church and said Ukrainians are bad and they bomb Moscow. After that my acquaintance stopped taking her child to those classes, saying “you don’t know what they will model in your child’s head.” But not all mothers are so vigilant…

— What has the resonance of the study been abroad?

— Europeans are very interested in our study — we have presented its results at international venues three times already. For European audiences many of our findings are revelations: what is long obvious in Ukraine has been for years perceived there as “internal church affairs.” So the main conclusion of our work is simple: the ROC’s network in the EU is both a religious and a security issue. The sooner European societies realize this, the less chance Moscow will have to turn Ukrainian refugees into an instrument of its influence.

Reference

The Institute of National Resilience and Security (INRS) is a Ukrainian research-analytical institution whose statutory task is studying Russian hybrid influences and strengthening national resilience. The study “The ROC in Europe: infrastructure of Russian influence” was carried out by the INRS sociological research laboratory and covered five EU countries: France, Germany, Poland, Italy, and Belgium. Full methodology, source registry, and quantitative data are available in the full report. The Institute is currently preparing an educational course “Russian Studies.” More details at inrs.net.ua.