“Putin has repeated that the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the 20th century was the collapse of the Soviet Union, and he wants to reconstitute it,” said Archbishop Borys Gudziak of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Archeparchy of Philadelphia. “So the corruption and the authoritarianism, which is drifting towards totalitarianism, the post-truth disinformation in propaganda, all of that is threatened by vibrant democracy [in Ukraine].”

“I find it flabbergasting to see conservative Catholics look to Putin or to Russia as a bastion of traditional values,” Archbishop Gudziak added. “Russia has the highest abortion rate in the world. . . .How this kind of regime that crushes human dignity, that poisons dissidents, or has them shot in the capital of the country—how this can be a source of interest and hope or inspiration for people with traditional Christian values is completely beyond me.”