ABSTRACT
Under Vladimir Putin, traditional Russian and even Soviet notions of the supremacy of the interests of the state have led to the creation of not so much a totalitarian but a ‘mobilisation state.’ Putin’s Russia is, rather, distinctive in the scale of their use, and in the integration of state and theoretically non-state actors, regardless of legal status, role or ideology. Much has been written and said about the Russians’ use of their own and foreign media, as well as the global realms of social media, to press their own positions, contest others’ and generally seek to undermine foreign unity and will. The Moscow Patriarchate of the Russian Orthodox Church is incestuously connected with the Russian state. Traditionally, it upheld an alliance with the tsars, regarded as God’s chosen rulers. In Soviet time, the Church was heavily penetrated by the Committee of State Security, and it benefits from generous financial privileges.
