Chapter 12 introduces the concept of church-state alliance through the Russian Orthodox Church and its partnership with Putin. Patriarch Kirill, the second-most powerful man in Russia, lent the support of the Orthodox Church to Putin’s proposals to restore traditional values to Russia. This indicated an intention to distinguish Russian identity and bolster patriotism through religion, moving to ban the Pope from Russia and criminalize missionary work from other countries. Later, when Putin exhibited his desire to separate Russia from the more progressive and secular West by passing a law that banned “propaganda of nontraditional sexual relationships” (233), the church also came out in support. In 2014, The Russian Orthodox Church justified the invasion of Crimea by framing it as Moscow’s “divine destiny” to expand. In 2022, when Putin launched his invasion of Ukraine, the Kremlin had saturated Russian culture with a rhetoric of “geopolitical conquest as religious obligation” (233).

Though the invasion struggled in execution, state-run media broadcast a different message to Russian citizens. Putin encouraged media that painted Ukrainians as Satanists and enforced a strict blockade of Western media except for propagandist Tucker Carlson, whose show was “played in a loop on Russian state television” (235).