Religion and Empire, Inseparable

In February 2022, when Russia launched its second invasion of Ukraine, Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and All Russia blessed the invading forces as “the active manifestation of evangelical love for neighbors.” Later that year, Kirill dubbed Vladimir Putin “fighter against the Antichrist” and “chief exorcist.” This kind of thing is hard to reconcile with the rationalist creed of American analysis, so the analysts mostly ignore it or adduce it as proof that Putin has gone mad. The liberal dogma known as political science can, in its realist mood, comprehend Russia’s strategic interest in Ukraine, and especially Crimea. We all recognize imperialism as the vice of a disordered and depraved past, and postimperial revanchism as the twitch of a phantom limb that was sawn off for everyone’s benefit. But we prefer not to recognize our own shadow.