IGWEBUIKE: African Journal of Arts and Humanities

This paper observes that the Russian-Ukrainian war has been ongoing for four years now. The raging war has caused colossal damage to lives and property. It is against the enormous destruction occasioned by the war that the paper appreciates the depth of concern given to the war by world leaders and other actors, all aimed at curbing the destructive effect or, better still, halting the war in order to allow peace to reign again between the two neighbouring countries. While these efforts are ongoing, and at different levels, scholars and policymakers have given their different perspectives on the war; some of these perspectives have to do with geopolitics and the quest to be a regional hegemon by Russia as well as the desire for membership of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) by Ukraine. Other scholars blame the war on economics and tart consanguine relationship between Russia and Ukraine. While these perspectives cannot be dismissed as if they do not have causative factors underpinning the ravaging war, the paper discovers with shock the missing or neglected role of religion in the conflict in most of the analysis on the war. It is, therefore, against this background that the paper argues that religion is the substratum upon which other perspectives hang and manifest. At same time it is religion that is influencing other perspectives but in camouflage and clandestine too. In arguing its position, the paper uses phenomenological and historical means in making its analysis while relying on both primary and secondary sources for data.

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