Religious leaders around the world have decried the conflict in Ukraine which has led to a split in the Orthodox Church following the refusal by the head of the Russian Orthodox church, Patriarch Kirill, an ally of President Vladimir Putin, to condemn the invasion. Instead, he asked God to preserve the Russian land from evil forces, referring to "the land which now includes Russia and Ukraine and Belarus and other tribes and peoples".

Consequently, The Guardian in Britain reported on March 13, a Russian Orthodox church in Amsterdam had announced that it was to split with the Moscow patriarchate, "in the first known instance of a Western-based church cutting ties over the invasion of Ukraine".