Andrey kordochkin, welcome to hardtalk. Thank you. Its a great Honour And Privilege to be here. Well, its great to have you in the studio. Let me take you back to February 2022. Putin orders an all out invasion of ukraine. Within days, you, a priest in the russian Orthodox Church, choose to speak out against the invasion. When you did that, did you feel that this would be the end of your career in the russian Orthodox Church . I think that when the war has begun, very few of us could actually give a prediction of what is going to come through. So i think that many people would suggest that the war would be over in a very short period of time. So i dont think that any of us was acting out of any kind of prediction. And i think when i spoke out against the war, i dont think that i really felt any choice. I thought that it was a moral imperative on behalf of any christian or any sensible and reasonable person, to try to stop it, or at least not to be a part of what one may call a moraljus
On criminal issues. And this was quite an interesting conspiracy in that it really was two employees of rt, which is a company that is banned basically from broadcasting in the united states, europe, the uk, has been since the start of the ukrainian war, and they were both working but representing multiple individuals behind the scenes, trying to make it seem as legitimate an operation as possible, and posing as a billionaire who ended up being fictitious. To say that it was a billionaire with a background in france, in brussels, who was a banker, who was trying to get this information out. And really, it was these two rt employees posing as him and employees that worked for him. Ok, let s, yeah, let s unpick it a bit more. You mentioned that company, that tennessee firm, tenet media. Just tell us about the company. What does it do? yeah, so the company itself was actually formally established last year. And it is definitely more an analysis, i would say, than a news company, very much
Russias current borders. Putins Expansionist Nationalism requires military power, but its harnessed the cultural spiritual authority of the russian Orthodox Church, too. My guest, andrey kordochkin, was a russian Orthodox Priest who spoke out against the ukraine war and the putinisation of his church. But is he swimming against an unstoppable tide . Andrey kordochkin, welcome to hardtalk. Thank you. Its a great Honour And Privilege to be here. Well, its great to have you in the studio. Let me take you back to February 2022. Putin orders an all out invasion of ukraine. Within days, you, a priest in the russian Orthodox Church, choose to speak out against the invasion. When you did that, did you feel that this would be the end of your career in the russian Orthodox Church . I think that when the war has begun, very few of us could actually give a prediction of what is going to come through. So i think that many people would suggest that the war would be over in a very short period of tim
In the russian orthodox church, choose to speak out against the invasion. When you did that, did you feel that this would be the end of your career in the russian orthodox church? i think that when the war has begun, very few of us could actually give a prediction of what is going to come through. So i think that many people would suggest that the war would be over in a very short period of time. So i don t think that any of us was acting out of any kind of prediction. And i think when i spoke out against the war, i don t think that i really felt any choice. I thought that it was a moral imperative on behalf of any christian or any sensible and reasonable person, to try to stop it, or at least not to be a part of what one may call a moraljustification of evil. But you didn t actually just speak out yourself. Within days, you were a co signatory to a declaration that, i think, involved almost 300 russian orthodox priests, who were opposed to this invasion. So, it wasn t just yourself. Y
Was aimed at exploiting divisions in us society. So everything from being against the war in ukraine to exploiting divisions on race, on lgbtq issues, on criminal issues. And this was quite an interesting conspiracy in that it really was two employees of rt, which is a company that is banned basically from broadcasting in the united states, europe, the uk, has been since the start of the ukrainian war, and they were both working but representing multiple individuals behind the scenes, trying to make it seem as legitimate an operation as possible, and posing as a billionaire who ended up being fictitious. To say that it was a billionaire with a background in france, in brussels, who was a banker, who was trying to get this information out. And really, it was these two Rt Employees posing as him and employees that worked for him. Ok, lets, yeah, lets unpick it a bit more. You mentioned that company, that tennessee firm, tenet media. Just tell us about the company. What does it do . Yeah,