Russian forces raid two Baptist church services in occupied Ukraine

Russian authorities in occupied regions in eastern Ukraine are disrupting Sunday services of faith groups that have not registered under their new requirements.

On Sunday, 25 January 2026, worship celebrations at two churches belonging to the Council of Baptist Churches in the Luhansk region were interrupted by Russian military and police, some of them carrying firearms.

“They brusquely entered the hall of the prayer house and ordered all the men to stand up”, Pastor Vladimir Rytikov of one of the churches, in Krasnodon, explained to Forum 18 News. They recorded the identities of those present at the meeting. The officers accused church members of meeting illegally as the church is not registered with the Russian authorities.

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The pastor was then questioned at the Russian police station. “They said that if we don't register, they'll come to every service and stop it taking place”, Rytikov explained.

Between July and December 2025, Russian agents carried out at least six raids on evangelical Baptist churches of this denomination.

In addition, there have been reports in the last six months of a raid on a Pentecostal evangelical church and another on a Muslim community.

According to Forum 18 News, in six of the eight cases, spiritual leaders were fined for “missionary activities”, which are prohibited under the new regime.

Among other Russian agencies, the Police's Centre for Countering Extremism, the prosecutor's office and the Russian security service FSB, participate in the raids.

The congregations of the Council of Churches Baptist are not registered in any country where they exist and refuse to notify the authorities of their activities. For this reason, the Russian authorities operating in Ukraine consider their religious activity to be illegal and do not allow them to exercise freedom of worship.

In May 2025, UN Secretary-General António Guterres called on Russia to respect religious freedom in Ukraine. “The occupying authorities of the Russian Federation continued to restrict the right to freedom of religion and belief for certain religious communities in the temporarily occupied territories of Ukraine”, he denounced at the Human Rights Council in Geneva.