Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, in an interview with TASS director general Andrei Kondrashov, described Vladimir Putin's rise to power as 'help from above.' Lavrov called the transfer of authority from Boris Yeltsin to Putin a 'historic turn' that shows Russia is 'still marked by God.'
According to Lavrov, in the 1990s 'everything was on the brink' due to separatist sentiments, and Yeltsin 'found the courage' to hand over power early — to the person who 'at that moment was the only one able to preserve Russia.' 'And when things get really hard, we get help from above,' the minister added.
Earlier, filmmaker and propagandist Nikita Mikhalkov said that more than 20 years ago Putin told him about his divine election. 'We were talking, and he said to me: "Imagine who I was and who I became. Did the Lord really do this so I could finish what others didn't have time to finish?"' Mikhalkov recounted.
In 2025, Patriarch Kirill also said Russians should thank God for Putin. Putin himself has previously claimed that Russia is 'directly governed by God,' who approved the war with Ukraine. Protodeacon Andrei Kurayev, commenting on such statements, noted that Putin has a 'purely PR attitude toward religion' and believes in a god 'who approves any of their actions in advance.'
Over the past three years, Putin has increasingly described Russia as a country under special divine protection. Lavrov did not specify in the interview which events or decisions he considers divine intervention.