By Maya Mehrara Newsweek World

The archpriest of the Russian Orthodox Church (ROC) said that High Mobility Artillery Rocket System (HIMARS) strikes on Russia by Ukraine are God’s punishment for abortions, according to the Moscow Times.

During a sermon, Archpriest Andrei Tkachev spoke about the harm abortion does to the Russian gene pool and how Moscow’s population did not have the right to “demand happiness” or peace because of it.

Newsweek reached out to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation for comment via email.

Why It Matters

The archpriest’s comments add to the anti-abortion rhetoric that’s already on the rise in Russia. They could incite Moscow’s government to implement further measures to restrict access to abortion.

What to Know

Tkachev blamed the HIMARS strikes on abortion and spoke about this extensively during his sermon.

He said: “Abortions have destroyed our gene pool, turned us into debauchees and murderers… It is precisely because of the murder of innocents that God punishes,” and he went on to say that abortions take “an order of magnitude more” people than war does, and that “it is because of depravity that wars occur. And we will have no peace until we repent,” and later discussed the punishment of women who have abortions.

The archpriest also said the reason President Vladimir Putin invaded Ukraine in February 2022 was because of moral decline due to widespread masturbation in Russia, as he said that “If semen spills anywhere, then future blood spills along with the semen.”

HIMARS are U.S.-supplied truck-mounted launchers manufactured by Lockheed Martin that can carry a range of munitions. They have been described as the “backbone against Russia’s aggression” and a “symbol of Russian vulnerability” after being used extensively in the last few months of 2024.

After receiving its first HIMARS in 2022, Ukraine has used the launchers to hit Russian assets and troops. Recent strikes utilizing the rocket launcher include a strike in Kursk that killed six people on December 20, and an attack on a command post in Zaporizhzhia that killed three high-ranking Russian officers on December 27. There were also numerous strikes in September, October and November that caused casualties and damage to Russian assets.

While abortion is legal in Russia, the movement against it has been gaining momentum in recent years. The Russian government has responded by passing laws in two regions that punish individuals found to “coerce” women into having abortions and limit the number of terminations performed. It has also introduced legislation restricting access to emergency contraception and abortion-related drugs.

Moscow is seeking to reverse the country’s declining birth rate and solve demographic issues as the three-year war in Ukraine shows no sign of ending. Russian abortion rates were high for decades in comparison to other countries globally, before falling in the past 20 years.

What People Are Saying

In a post on X, formerly known as Twitter, Regina Bauer, an Estonian entrepreneur, wrote: “The Russian Orthodox Church stated that HIMARS strikes on Russia are God’s punishment for abortions. Well, if Putin’s mother had had an abortion, there would be no HIMARS strikes on Russia today.”

Michele Rivkin-Fish, a sociocultural and medical anthropologist and associate professor at the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill, previously told Newsweek: “There’s a lot actually of moves now in regions around Russia, local ordinances that prohibit private clinics from providing abortions, which means women would need to go to the state clinic, which just gives us fewer choices. In some of these regions, there’s also a kind of penalty if someone has been trying to persuade a woman against having abortion, they can be fined. There’s also bonuses, financial bonuses to clinicians who talk women out of having an abortion.

“These are a lot of different kinds of pressures that are coming to bear on women to try to raise the birth rate in part through changing their values and in part through restrictive measures.”

What Happens Next

The archpriest’s statements may incite the Kremlin to impose more restrictions on access to abortion, and it will probably state that it has been done in order to prevent other HIMARS strikes and to stop Russia’s birth rate from continuing to decline.

https://www.miamiherald.com/news/nation-world/world/article298695068.html