Russia Weaponizes ‘Traditional Values’ Narrative to Influence US Opinion on Ukraine War

Russian propaganda efforts targeting the United States have taken on a new dimension in the ongoing war against Ukraine, with the Kremlin increasingly positioning itself as a defender of Christianity and traditional values. This messaging strategy has found receptive audiences within certain American political circles, particularly among those aligned with the MAGA movement.

Since Russia’s February 2022 invasion of Ukraine, disinformation has played a central role in Moscow’s war effort. One notable example involves footage of a church that burned down over a decade ago in a remote Russian village near Kazakhstan. This video has been repurposed and widely distributed across Russian media platforms with false claims that it depicts Ukrainian forces destroying Orthodox churches.

Despite being demonstrably false, this narrative has become a powerful tool in justifying the war to the Russian public. Patriarch Kirill, head of the Russian Orthodox Church, has gone so far as to characterize the conflict as a “holy war,” blessing soldiers before deployment with promises of salvation.

What’s particularly concerning to analysts is how effectively this messaging has been exported beyond Russia’s borders, especially to American audiences already engaged in domestic culture wars.

“This is a war on Christianity,” claimed Republican Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene in public remarks. “The Ukrainian government is attacking Christians. The Ukrainian government is executing priests. Russia is not doing that. They’re not attacking Christianity. As a matter of fact, they seem to be protecting it.”

Similar sentiments have been echoed by prominent right-wing figures like former Trump campaign strategist Steve Bannon and Blackwater founder Erik Prince, who praised Russia as an “anti-woke” defender of traditional gender roles during a discussion on Bannon’s show.

Recent polling indicates a significant shift in Republican attitudes toward Russia, with GOP voters now more than twice as likely to view Russia as a partner of the United States compared to previous years. While most Republicans and American Christians still support Ukraine, a growing subculture on both the far right and far left has become increasingly hostile toward Ukrainian interests.

Mark Tooley, president of the Institute on Religion and Democracy, finds this trend disturbing. “It is distressing that many people on the right are no longer adhering to traditional conservative values,” Tooley said. “By most measures, Ukraine seems to be more religiously practicing than Russia is, so it’s a pretext or an excuse for opposing Ukraine. Certainly, President Reagan and others from the 1980s would be overwhelmingly supportive of Ukraine today.”

The propaganda campaign has found willing amplifiers in American media. Canadian-American lawyer Robert Amsterdam, who represents a branch of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church with alleged ties to Moscow, has repeatedly made false claims about Ukrainians burning churches and accused President Volodymyr Zelenskyy of personally waging war against Christians—despite Zelenskyy’s wife being Ukrainian Orthodox and their children baptized in the faith.

Katherine Kelaidis from the Institute of Orthodox Christian Studies explained that Ukraine’s controversial law requiring the Russian-aligned church to merge with the independent Orthodox Church of Ukraine was motivated by legitimate national security concerns. “There are undoubtedly priests and bishops who are also acting as agents of the Russian state, who are involved in espionage,” Kelaidis noted.

The reality contradicts Russia’s carefully crafted image as a Christian bastion. The fastest growing religious demographic in Russia is actually Muslim, not Orthodox Christian. Religious practice has declined significantly, with Orthodox believers hitting a 20-year low—less than 1% of Russians attended Christmas services last year, compared to approximately 50% of Americans.

Moreover, Russian forces have targeted evangelical Christians in occupied Ukrainian territories, shutting down Protestant and non-Orthodox places of worship. This follows an established pattern of using terrorism laws to close hundreds of Jehovah’s Witness, Protestant, and other non-Orthodox congregations within Russia itself.

By selling a spiritual war narrative, Russia aims to win a geopolitical conflict. The carefully constructed fiction that Russia serves as a haven for traditional religious values is designed to build support for lifting sanctions and cutting aid to Ukraine—a strategy that appears to be gaining traction among some Americans caught in the polarized echo chambers of culture war debates.