Well this is a bad sign. A very very very bad sign.

President Zelensky of Ukraine has announced that Ukraine’s National Security and Defense Council will draw up a law banning religious organizations that are associated with Russia.

KYIV, Dec 2 (Reuters) – The Ukrainian government will draw up a law banning churches affiliated with Russia under moves described by President Volodymyr Zelenskiy as necessary to prevent Moscow being able to “weaken Ukraine from within.”

In a move condemned in Moscow, Ukraine’s National Security and Defence Council told the government to draft the law following a series of raids on parishes that Kyiv says could be taking orders from Moscow as Russia wages war on Ukraine.

The security council, which groups top security, military and political figures, also ordered investigations into suspected “subversive activities of Russian special services in the religious environment of Ukraine” and called for sanctions against unspecified individuals.

Ukrainian media quoted sources as saying a pro-Russia former lawmaker and a senior cleric already faced “personal” sanctions, but the reports could not be confirmed independently.

As somebody who has enthusiastically sided with Ukraine in its war with Russia this troubles me a lot. While I have serious questions about US policies during the conflict, especially the open checkbook without limits for Ukraine’s war efforts, my overall opinion has been driven by the fact that Russia has clearly been the aggressor here.

They still are the aggressor, but the clear moral line between Zelensky and Putin has certainly been blurred quite a bit. Banning a church–especially one that represents millions of Ukrainians–is more than a bad look. It is simply bad.

The Wall Street Journal adds some context to the dispute between the Church and Zelensky.

Ukraine’s government moved to curb the activities of the Orthodox Christian denomination historically linked to Moscow https://t.co/eOYNeDJQtT

— The Wall Street Journal (@WSJ) December 2, 2022

Zelensky’s move does not ban all Orthodox churches, simply the ones with links directly with Moscow. The Russian Orthodox Church has been very supportive of the war and it’s quite understandable why that offends Ukrainians and worries the leadership.

Ukraine’s government moved to curb the activities of the Orthodox Christian denomination historically linked to Moscow, aiming to cut off the most important remaining source of Russian cultural and religious influence in the country.

President Volodymyr Zelensky announced the move as deadly battles continued along the front line, with Russia making small advances near the eastern Ukrainian city of Bakhmut, which has re-emerged as a major focus of the war.

The Ukrainian Orthodox Church, canonically linked to the Moscow Patriarchate, is one of the country’s two main Orthodox denominations and used to be the dominant one before many faithful and parishes switched to the rival Orthodox Church of Ukraine.

Viewed by Moscow as heretical, the OCU was recognized in 2019 by the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople as fully independent from Russia, a major diplomatic achievement for Kyiv and a blow to Russian soft power. Most Ukrainian believers are Orthodox Christians, though Greek Catholics are predominant in the country’s west.

The Russian Orthodox Church and its leadership has been disgustingly supportive of Putin’s power move. Many Ukrainians believe that the Church is more Russian than Orthodox, with good reason. Ed has written multiple times about how the Patriarch of the Church has not only backed Putin’s moves, but also declared that Russian soldiers would absolved of their sins because of their service.

The context within which the move took place show why the Ukrainians are taking this move.

Mr. Zelensky’s crackdown on the UOC follows a series of raids by the Security Service of Ukraine. The intelligence agency has said it has found evidence of UOC priests possessing Russian citizenship, contacting Russian intelligence agents and owning literature denying the right of Ukraine to exist. One of these raids was triggered by a video filmed in the Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra cathedral, the seat of the UOC and one of the holiest Orthodox shrines, in which the faithful sang a hymn celebrating Russia’s “awakening.”

“We will ensure complete independence for our state. In particular, spiritual independence,” Mr. Zelensky said in his late-night address Thursday, after the country’s national-security council approved new steps against the UOC. “We will never allow anyone to build an empire inside the Ukrainian soul.”

Still, I believe Zelensky is simply wrong to do this. “Spiritual independence” strikes me as just another way of saying religious control. Punish the people doing evil deeds, but not the thoughts of individuals who do nothing explicitly wrong.

Freedoms always suffer during wartime. It is simply a fact of life that in efforts to root out foreign enemies and traitors from within civil liberties take a serious hit.

But this goes far beyond the normal limits to freedoms we associate with “good guys” during wartime. It’s not that the US has been blameless itself during wars–the internment of the Japanese was a horrific blow to our commitment to civil liberties, and wholly unwarranted. Collective punishment is simply wrong, everywhere and always.

And that is what is happening in this case. Collectively punishing an entire religious group/institution because some members are bad actors is unjust and illiberal.

In recent months the United States’ policies have far exceeded the boundaries of good strategy. The recent announcement that Ukraine will join NATO was a bad move IMHO. In the midst of a war between Russia and Ukraine announcing that the country will come under the NATO security umbrella is a scary move. Perhaps there is some good strategy there–Putin is making noises about compromises–but it also could extend the war as Russia feels more threatened than ever.

In broad terms the US has achieved its war aims already–Russia is extremely weakened–and I get the sense that our unconditional support for Ukraine is making things worse by both extending the war and emboldening the worst tendencies of the Ukrainian government, which has always been corrupt.

I admire Zelensky as much as most Americans, but there simply have to be limits. He is not a paragon of virtue; he is simply a courageous wartime leader with a record of success. That alone is not reason to give him carte blanche. 

It’s time to reign in Zelensky, lest we just create another tyrant in the midst of Europe.