Marjorie Taylor Greene Applauds Russia for 'Protecting Christianity'

Republican Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene on Monday said that Russia is "protecting Christianity" more than Ukraine, as part of what she described as a broader war against the religion.

Greene, the two-term GOP lawmaker out of Georgia, has been one of the more outspoken members of her party's conference over not providing continuous domestic aid to Ukraine in its two-plus year conflict with Russia since it was invaded on February 24, 2022.

A strong supporter of wanting Congress to devote funding towards the southern border and against illegal immigration, Greene has also vocally attacked Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson. She has introduced a motion to vacate against him after he pushed through a $1.2 trillion spending bill that avoided a partial shutdown. While using rhetoric pegging the Speaker as a Democrat, Greene has also publicly questioned Johnson's Christian faith on multiple occasions.

"Let's talk about what this really is, Steve: This is a war against Christianity," Greene said on Steve Bannon's War Room podcast. "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."

Newsweek reached out to Greene and Johnson via email for comment.

She went to on to say she's "not praising Vladimir Putin or Russia in any way," but added that "it's clear and obvious" and that Christians are also being attacked in the U.S. and in other countries.

"So why would we be giving $60 billion to a country in Ukraine that is destroying the Christian faith, persecuting Christians and killing them, ended their elections (they're not even allowed to vote out [Ukrainian President Volodymyr] Zelensky even if they wanted to, totally shut down the free and fair press, and have silenced the people in their country and is now drafting young and younger men so they can be slaughtered on the battlefield? I don't think Americans support that."

Mikhail Troitskiy, professor of practice at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, disagreed with Greene's characterization.

"There is simply no reason for the Ukrainian government to persecute Christians because it has much more important concerns during the war with Russia," he told Newsweek. "The constitution of Ukraine does not mention Christianity or any other religion as official, and Ukraine is a secular state—but there is no reason for its government to crack down on the Christian faith.

"Russia, in its turn, is on the record demanding that Orthodox priests remain loyal to the cause of the war against Ukraine."

Troitskiy said Greene's statements can be perceived as appealing to a particular base within the Republican Party, adding that a lack of aid for Ukraine could have which could have dire consequences not just for the invaded nation, but also global security.

Greene's statement is also disputed by several organizations and think tanks, both in the U.S. and around the globe.

Since Russia's full-scale invasion over two years ago, their forces have been responsible for damaging or destroying at least 660 churches and other religious structures, including at least 206 belonging to Protestants," according to the Center for Strategic and International Studies. That includes 94 Pentecostal churches, 60 Evangelical Christian Baptist churches, and 27 7th Day Adventist churches.

In a February 2023 report, the Institute of Religious Freedom found that nearly 500 religious sites and spaces were damaged, destroyed or looted during the first year of Russia's invasion.

Verstka, an independent online news publication founded on April 26, 2022, by independent Russian journalists, reported last July found that Russia's religious persecution in occupied Ukrainian regions found 43 cases of targeted persecution of clergy and more than 109 acts pressuring churches and religious figures representing Orthodox Christians, Catholics, Protestants, Muslims, and Jehovah's Witnesses.

That same month, testimony at the United Nations iterated myriad incidents of violence against Ukrainian religious communities, including clergy and other members of religious communities disappearing or experiencing arbitrary detention, torture and unlawful deportations.

In March 2024, Amnesty International reported that Crimea has become an experimental area for consistent Russian-helmed religious persecution.

They said Ukrainians' freedom of religion has been severely restricted, including the introduction of legislation according to which praying, preaching or disseminating religious materials outside specifically designated places or without an official permission was deemed a punishable offence.

Last year, dozens of administrative cases were reportedly introduced and brought against individuals for "illegal" missionary activity. In more than 50 those targeted paid hefty fines for these "violations," according to information from freedom of religion watchdog Forum 18.