Patriarch Kirill praises Russian troops – as Kremlin shells Orthodox site in Ukraine

Patriarch Kirill, the 79-year old head of the Russian Orthodox Church, has long been a steadfast supporter of president Vladimir Putin and the Kremlin’s war in Ukraine.

Earlier this month, he praised Russian troops for their “glorious accomplishments” in Ukraine, which killed over 2,500 civilians last year alone.

The latest “accomplishment” includes Russia shelling an Orthodox cultural centre owned by the Moscow Patriarchate in the city of Dnipro, in east-central Ukraine.

The centre on Wednesday was “completely destroyed,” according to Dniepro’s mayor, Borys Filatov.

“It’ll be very interesting to see what kind of statement the Moscow priests will make about this incident,” he said, in a Telegram post on Thursday.

Several other districts in the city had also been hit with dozens of people sent to hospitals to treat their wounds. At least three have died.

When I met Filatov earlier this month, he described life in Ukraine as a lottery where drones and debris can kill you at any moment.

“We all live as if in a lottery, never knowing where the drone wreckage might fall, or which houses it might hit,” he said.

Kirill, who only last week delivered a Christmas sermon to a disoriented clergy, is unlikely to make any mention of the latest assault.

The event will almost certainly be dismissed as part of Russia’s so‑called “special military operation.”

Once calling Putin a “miracle of God,” Kirill embodies the merger of faith and power that sustains Russia’s authoritarian narrative.

For strongmen and their imitators, religious endorsement and its symbols serve as both validation and propaganda.

In time that too may fall apart, much like the Orthodox centre in Dnipro, reduced to a pile of rubble in a war Kirill has long supported.