Department of Religious Studies of the Hryhorii Skovoroda Institute of Philosophy of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, the Institute of Religious Freedom and the Ukrainian Centre of Peacebuilding NGOs, with the support of the Directorate-General for Rendering Services to Diplomatic Missions, are organizing a roundtable discussion for representatives of foreign diplomatic missions and organizations titled The Religious Factor of National Security amidst the Russian-Ukrainian War, which will take place on 29 April 2026 from 11:00 am until 1:00 pm at the Media Center Directorate of the GDIP, 6A Pyrohova St, Kyiv.

The roundtable discussion aims to cover the following matters:

1. The challenges and threats of Russia’s exploitation of religion and the church to achieve its military and political goals;
2. The Patriarchate of Moscow — the Kremlin’s tool and the shaper/preserver of the Russian imperial identity;
3. The Ukrainian experience of countering the spread of the ‘Russian World’ ideology through the Russian Orthodox Church;
4. Modern peculiarities of the society-religion and state-church relations: myths and facts.

The event will involve:

• Oleksandr Sahan — moderator, doctor of philosophy, full professor, religion expert;
• Liudmyla Fylypovych — doctor of philosophy, full professor, president of the Ukrainian Association of Religious Studies;
• Yevstratii (Zoria) — metropolitan of Bila Tserkva, spokesman of the Metropolis of Kyiv of the Orthodox Church of Ukraine (OCU), deputy head of the Department for External Church Relations of the OCU;
• Oleksandr Skrypniuk — doctor of law, full professor, head of the V. M. Koretsky Institute of state and law of the NAS of Ukraine;
• Oleksandr Zaiets — head of the board of the Institute of Religious Freedom NGO;
• Denys Bodriian — head of the Ukrainian Centre of Peacebuilding NGO;
• Nazar Mukhachov — journalist, editor-in-chief of the America-based Ukrainian-language weekly journal Surma.

The event will feature a comprehensive discussion among experts on the situation in Ukraine’s socio-religious landscape; the spread of Russian narratives and the implementation of pseudo-religious projects within the religious landscape, which the Russian Federation exploits to promote the ideas of the ‘Russian World’ and Eurasianism, aiming to exercise destructive influence on public opinion and the international political arena and to discredit Ukraine amid the large-scale Russian-Ukrainian war; and the establishment of the autocephaly of Ukrainian Orthodoxy in the context of integration into the European and Euro-Atlantic space.

Please confirm your participation by 28 April 2026 by filling out the following registration form: https://forms.gle/rETM6djQocMosB678 

For registration and inquiries, please contact Anna Mikholat, a representative of the GDIP Media Center Directorate, at +38 (097) 454-47-11‬ or via the following email: prepress.gdip@gmail.com.