Russia’s War on Faith Act

Key Points

• The bill requires the Secretary of State and Secretary of Defense, working with the Director of National Intelligence, to produce a detailed report on Russia's persecution of religious groups in occupied Ukraine. The first report is due within 120 days, with annual updates for three years.
• The report must identify specific individuals and entities responsible for persecuting Christians, Jews, Muslims (including Crimean Tatars), and other religious minorities not aligned with the Russian Orthodox Church in occupied Ukrainian territories.
• Once people are identified in the report, the President must certify whether there are reasonable grounds to believe they committed the abuses and then impose sanctions including freezing their assets and blocking their property under existing authorities like the Global Magnitsky Act and Ukraine/Russia-related sanctions.
• Congress documents that over 600 religious sites have been damaged or destroyed and more than 50 religious leaders killed since Russia's full-scale invasion, with many others abducted, tortured, or forcibly disappeared.
• The bill highlights the role of the Russian Orthodox Church leadership in framing the invasion in religious terms, and notes that non-aligned religious communities have been raided, forced to re-register under Russian law, and driven underground.

Impact Analysis

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