Welcome to Hard Talk from the BBC World Service with me, Stephen Sacker. My guest today,

Andrei Khoroschkin, was a Russian Orthodox priest who was forced out of the church in the months

after Vladimir Putin's full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. His crime in the eyes of head of the church, Patriarch Kirill, well, it was his

refusal to support Russia's military invasion and his advocacy of peace rather than victory on the

battlefield. At the time of his suspension, Kurosashkin was the senior priest serving the Russian Orthodox

Cathedral in Madrid. His congregation included expatriate Russians and Ukrainians. He co-authored a statement

opposing the Russian invasion signed by almost 300 fellow priests, and that, as far as his superiors in Moscow were concerned,

was an act of unforgivable disloyalty and betrayal.

Kuroschkin is now based in Germany and has continued to defy his former bosses.

He co-founded an organization which offers help to other anti-war priests, and earlier this year

he officiated at a commemoration service in Berlin for Alexei Navalny, the anti-Putin opposition

leader who died in a Russian prison. Karashkin speaks of his former church as now so closely

entwined with the Kremlin's expansionist project

that it promotes a cult of death to the Russian people.

But given Putin's grip on power and patriarch Kirill's absolute loyalty,

is he swimming against an unstoppable tide.

Well, Andrei Kaddhkin joins me now.

Welcome to Hard Talk.

Thank you.

It's a great honor and privilege to be here.

Well, it's great to have you in the studio.

Let me take you back to February 2022.

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