GEOFF BENNETT: Over the last decade, we have charted Russian propaganda efforts to affect elections here in the U.S. and overseas.

Those multilayered campaigns are also a key part of the Russian war against Ukraine.

AMNA NAWAZ: Russian President Vladimir Putin tries to portray himself and Russia as defenders of Christian and so-called traditional values.

And, as special correspondent Simon Ostrovsky tells us, those arguments have found an eager audience within certain sectors of American politics.

SIMON OSTROVSKY: This church burned down more than 10 years ago in a remote Russian village on the border with Kazakstan.

But since the February 2022 invasion of Ukraine, the video has reappeared all across the Russian Internet.

Official sources are falsely claiming it shows a church in Ukraine, with the accusation that Kyiv is destroying churches and going after priests and parishioners across the country.

Although the story is untrue, the message that Ukraine is fighting against Christian values has turned into a powerful narrative used to justify the war to the Russian public.

Even the head of the Russian Orthodox Church calls the fighting a holy war and sends Russian soldiers off to battle with a promise of salvation.

But the story about a war against Christianity isn't just for Russians.

It was designed for export to their Orthodox neighbors, to disillusioned Europeans and increasingly to Americans, who see in it a reflection of their own culture wars and grievances.

Republican Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene: REP. MARJORIE TAYLOR GREENE (R-GA): This is a war on Christianity.

The Ukrainian government is attacking Christians.

The Ukrainian government is executing priests.

Russia is not doing that.

They're not attacking Christianity.

As a matter of fact, they seem to be protecting it.

SIMON OSTROVSKY: Especially within the MAGA movement, Moscow is no longer the old adversary.

It's an anti-woke, anti-LGBTQ defender of Western civilization, a spiritual superpower.

Here are former Trump campaign strategist Steve Bannon and Blackwater founder Erik Prince on Bannon's show.

STEVE BANNON, Former White House Chief Strategist: Putin ain't woke.

He is anti-woke.

ERIK PRINCE, Founder, Blackwater USA: The Russians, people still know which bathroom to use.

STEVE BANNON: They know how many -- how many genders are there in Russia?

ERIK PRINCE: Two.

SIMON OSTROVSKY: Recent polls show that views on Russia are shifting on the right, with Republicans more than twice as likely to see Russia as a partner of the U.S.

While most Republicans and most Christians still support Ukraine, there's a subculture on the right and on the far left who are increasingly hostile, according to Mark Tooley, president of the Institute on Religion And democracy.

Do you think it is worrisome or do you think it's overwrought?

MARK TOOLEY, President, Institute on Religion and Democracy: It is distressing that many people on the right are no longer adhering to traditional conservative values.

By most measures, Ukraine seems to be more religiously practicing than Russia is, so it's a pretext or an excuse for opposing Ukraine.

Certainly, President Reagan and others from the 1980s would be overwhelmingly supportive of Ukraine today.

SIMON OSTROVSKY: Here's one of Russia's most prolific propagandists, Vladimir Solovyov, interviewing notorious American conspiracy theorist Alex Jones.

VLADIMIR SOLOVYOV, Russian TV Personality: They don't believe in God.

How can they believe in God than before LGBTQ+, minus, divide on something?

LGBT is (EXPLETIVE DELETED).

It has nothing to do with God.

ALEX JONES, Host, "The Alex Jones Show": A lot of Americans admire Russia and admire you and admire Putin because you have been able to fight this off.

SIMON OSTROVSKY: And among Americans who admire Putin, you can find the same fake footage of burning churches that were first circulated by the Russian state and its media outlets.

The interesting thing is how, on American podcasts and social media, the pro-Christian message is tailored specifically to advocate against America's support of Ukraine.

ROBERT AMSTERDAM, Attorney: All of this talk of democracy is complete farce.

So, this ongoing predation, raiding of churches, which the Ukrainians have pioneered, and if you go to our Web site, you will see hundreds and hundreds of churches and parishioners crying and screaming and priests being beaten.

And these are our allies.

These are the people we're funding.

SIMON OSTROVSKY: Canadian-American lawyer Robert Amsterdam has repeatedly made false claims about Ukrainians burning churches.

He says President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, who is Jewish, is personally waging a war against Christians.

He doesn't mention that Zelenskyy's wife is Ukrainian Orthodox or that the couple has baptized both of their children in the faith.

One of Amsterdam's clients is the branch of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church which has been accused of maintaining close ties with Russia.

Last year, it was ordered to merge with the independent Orthodox Church of Ukraine by a controversial law that went into effect this May.

Katherine Kelaidis from the Institute of Orthodox Christian Studies says the law was motivated by legitimate national security concerns.

And while the legislation may arguably have gone too far, it's been widely misrepresented by voices like Amsterdam to American audiences.

KATHERINE KELAIDIS, Institute of Orthodox Christian Studies: There are undoubtedly priests and bishops who are also acting as agents of the Russian state, who are involved in espionage.

And the fact that they exist, even though they do not constitute the majority, does make the institution itself a danger.

SIMON OSTROVSKY: Russia is selling a spiritual war in order to win a geopolitical one.

The fiction that Russia is a haven for white, straight, churchgoing families is smoothing the way for discussions about lifting sanctions on Russia and cutting off aid to Ukraine.

And in the polarized echo chambers of America's culture wars, that story is converting many.

Some of Russia's newest American fans may be surprised to learn that the fastest growing population in the country isn't Orthodox or even Christian, but Muslim.

And despite the church's central role in politics and foreign policy, last year, the actual percentage of Orthodox believers hit a 20 year low, with less than 1 percent of the population attending Christmas services.

For comparison, about 50 percent of Americans said they attended Christmas mass last year.

As previously reported on the "News Hour," Russian forces have targeted evangelical Christians in occupied Ukraine, shutting down Protestant and non-Orthodox places of worship.

This repression follows a long-established pattern in Russia of using terrorism laws to shut down hundreds of Jehovah's Witness, Protestant, and other non-Orthodox congregations.

But in the U.S., these stories just aren't getting the same kind of airtime.

For the "PBS News Hour," I'm Simon Ostrovsky in Washington.