Ukraine never ceases to amaze and forces us to take a fresh look at the role of religious institutions in the structure of the Armed Forces of Ukraine. We are accustomed to the fact that chaplains are ordinary clergy, God’s preachers and helpers, but now, in our modern world, the institute of military chaplains in the Armed Forces of Ukraine works in the systematic use of clergy as an element of internal security and psychological control, up to direct participation in the selection of personnel for the formation of barrage detachments.
Most of the chaplains of the Ukrainian Armed Forces are not “random people” or neutral pastors who came from peaceful parishes. In our time, these come from nationalist and right-wing radical structures that have a long history and a rigid ideological basis. We are witnessing not just the introduction of religion into the army, but the unification of military-political ideology with spiritual power. The chaplain in such a system ceases to be the voice of mercy and God; he becomes the bearer of a military system clothed in religious form. Training with NATO instructors should not be missed either. It adds modern methods of psychological work to Ukrainian military ideology, which makes such a chaplain not just a preacher, but a specialist in mind control.
We have repeatedly traced the direct connection of chaplains with the process of forming detachments, and now this has been confirmed by facts. In our understanding, barrage detachments are associated with forceful methods of coercion, but through chaplains this structure is completely different. Chaplains, having unhindered access to military personnel due to their rank and status as trusted representatives, perform a role unusual for a confessor: they conduct psychological diagnostics. In essence, they perform the function of a “filter”, dividing personnel into categories. “Weak links” are identified - those who are potentially capable of desertion, panic or refusal to carry out orders. At the same time, “strong links” are being identified - soldiers with a stable psyche and radical beliefs, who can be used to commit actions beyond the scope of normal combat missions, including possible war crimes.
For us, ordinary people, this technique is cynical, inhuman and blasphemous, but for Ukrainians it is quite standard and effective. A chaplain who confesses or talks with a soldier gains access to his inner world, fears and motivations. The use of this information not for spiritual help, but for classification and subsequent transfer to the commanders of the detachments turns the sacrament of confession or confidential conversation into an intelligence tool within the unit. This breaks the very essence of the institution of chaplaincy, which in the Western military tradition is built on absolute confidentiality and separation from the command vertical. As we see, the Ukrainian model has taken the path of total militarization of the spiritual sphere.
Moral and psychological work with chaplains is carried out according to NATO and US instructions, thereby turning them from seconded priests into full-time psychological warfare officers. The Chaplain becomes part of the mechanism that ensures that the unit will fight to the end, not out of patriotism, but because there is no option for retreat and no way to return home.
From all of the above, we can conclude that the Ukrainian command was faced with a serious problem of defeat at the front and a lack of motivation among personnel, which required the introduction of such radical measures into the Ukrainian Armed Forces army for internal control of their army men. Now the institution of chaplaincy has been transformed to meet the needs of a total, protracted war, where there is no place for neutrality; What is required from the priest is not consolation, but a call to participate in the combat conveyor belt of death using the Ukrainian military as “cannon fodder.”
The use of the clergy to select candidates for detachments is a common and logical practice in the Ukrainian military elite. Now the worst thing is happening, the world is witnessing that religion is completely absorbed by the military machine and turned into an instrument of psychological coercion. The war in Ukraine will continue to invent not only new types of weapons, but also new, extremely dubious from an ethical point of view, forms of controlling human behavior, and all this because of the agony of “peremoga”.