TL:DR – Vladimir Putin’s militant nuns are infiltrating churches throughout Europe.
- The Church of Sweden discovered that nuns from the Belarusian St Elisabeth convent were raising funds for Russia’s military efforts in Ukraine.
- Known as ‘Z-Nuns,’ the convent has links to Russian military intelligence and has previously collaborated with Russian soldiers.
- The church issued warnings to others about the nuns’ activities, expressing concerns over their role as propaganda tools.
- This revelation prompted reflections on Sweden’s perceived neutrality and the reality of geopolitical conflicts.
Vladimir Putin’s mob of war-thirsty nuns are infiltrating churches across Europe | News World
The nuns were pictured in front of tanks in occupied Ukraine (Picture: Telegram)
### Nuns and Pro-War Narratives
Nuns aren’t the typical choice to push pro-war narratives, but the Church of Sweden found that a convent was actually working to raise money for Vladimir Putin’s war in Ukraine.
### The Belarusian Convent’s Connection
Nicknamed ‘Z-Nuns’, a notorious Belarusian convent which was selling trinkets to churchgoers last year was found to have links to Russia’s military intelligence.
The Church of Sweden has since issued warnings to other churches, after 20 churches in the Nordic country were found to have sisters from St Elisabeth working for pro-war initiatives.
### Activities in Occupied Ukraine
The nuns had previously been pictured in occupied Ukraine, working with Russian soldiers to ‘boost morale’ and even wearing military fatigues.
Michael Öjermo, the rector of Täby, Sweden, said he wasn’t aware of the convent’s history before inviting them, an investigation from The Telegraph found.
The revelation prompted the Church of Sweden – known for its friendliness and outreach – to issue a sobering warning to all other Catholic churches, telling them about the ‘spy nuns’.
The Church of Sweden invited the sisters, unaware of their activities (Picture: Facebook)
### Financial Support for Russian Nationalism
In the statement, it was explained that the sisters of St Elisabeth’s use their income to support Russian nationalism, support Russia’s aggression against Ukraine, and have close ties with GRU.
Those small trinkets the nuns had been selling in Swedish churches were actually being used to support Putin’s war machine.
‘The Church of Sweden advises against supporting their activities in any way.’
Rector Öjermo said he knew the convent was from Belarus – which is a key ally of Russia – but in his ministry, he had always worked with Christians in ‘dictatorships’.
He added: ‘I’m old enough to remember when ministers came from the German Democratic Republic [Soviet East Germany]… if three came, two would be for real and one would be a spy for the Stasi.
‘So, to me, it wasn’t a big problem to meet people from a church that I knew was dependent on a state that wasn’t ‘OK’ in my eyes.
‘What I understood this time, that I didn’t understand before, is that they can be used as propaganda. I didn’t make that conclusion before, and I see that can be a problem.’
It was an ‘awakening’ for a ‘nice country’, the COS crisis planning unit said (Picture: Telegram)
### A Wake-Up Call for Sweden
The head of the Church of Sweden’s crisis planning unit, Kristina Smith, said they have warned the Russian Orthodox Church about renting church facilities, after it was revealed they wanted to use facilities near military installations.
‘It’s a new thing for Sweden as a society… the full-scale invasion of 2022 was a rude awakening for a lot of Swedes,’ she said.
‘We prided ourselves on not being at war for 200 years, for being a nice country, a country that everyone wanted to be nice towards, but I think it was an awakening for the entire country that that is not really the case.’