Russian troops have taken part in a prayer service at a church in the village of Pesky that had suffered significant damage from Ukrainian attacks, the Russian Defense Ministry reported on Sunday.
Pesky is a small settlement on the northwestern outskirts of the city of Donetsk that has seen fighting since the early stages of the conflict in 2014. The damaged church where the service was held belongs to a small Orthodox women’s monastery.
The service was conducted by a military chaplain for the Orthodox members of the Russian 9th Separate Guards Motor Rifle Brigade, a unit formed from veterans of the Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR) militia. The region opposed the 2014 Western-led coup in Kiev and joined Russia in late 2022, after residents voted to do so in a referendum.
A video released by the ministry showed a small group of uniformed men led by the priest making their way into the church, bringing some icons in with them before joining in a prayer.
“In places like this, where temples suffered bleeding wounds, prayers for holy Russia are particularly strong,” Father Oleg said of the service.
Ukraine’s Orthodox community is currently in disarray after the government in Kiev cracked down on the canonical Ukrainian Orthodox Church (UOC), pressuring priests and worshipers to leave it and join the much more recently created Orthodox Church of Ukraine.
The UOC is self-governed but has historical and spiritual ties with the Russian Orthodox Church. A law enacted this past September gave the church nine months to distance itself from Moscow or be formally banned.