Author Biography
Bayram Aliyev is a Lecturer at the Department of International Relations at the Nakhchivan State University in Nakhchivan, Azerbaijan. He is teaching political philosophy, foreign policy, and security affairs.
DOI
https://doi.org/10.5038/1944-0472.18.4.2588
Subject Area Keywords
Defense policy, International relations, International security, Russia
Abstract
This article analyzes Russia’s religious securitization of the Ukraine war. It argues that securitizing actors in the Kremlin and the Moscow Patriarchate present Orthodoxy, Russian civilization, and traditional moral values as referent objects under existential threat. Using a corpus of strategy texts, speeches, and sermons, the study identifies a triad of narratives, sacred war, moral decline, and anti-Westernism, that structure public messaging. These narratives authorize extraordinary measures, from mobilization and legal restrictions to symbolic acts involving icons and clergy. The article proposes a layered framework that connects soft power instruments to sharper techniques in crisis, showing how religious language reshapes the boundary between ordinary politics and the state of exception.
Recommended Citation
Aliyev, Bayram. "Sacralizing Security: Orthodoxy and Securitization in Russia’s War on Ukraine." Journal of Strategic Security 18, no. 4 (2025)
: 190-204.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.5038/1944-0472.18.4.2588
Available at:
https://digitalcommons.usf.edu/jss/vol18/iss4/13
