‘What was difficult was to remain silent’ Meduza’s interview with Telo Tulku Rinpoche, Russia’s first religious head to condemn the war in Ukraine

‘What was difficult was to remain silent’ Meduza’s interview with Telo Tulku Rinpoche, Russia’s first religious head to condemn the war in Ukraine

In September 2022 — seven months after Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine — Telo Tulku Rinpoche, then the spiritual leader of Kalmykia’s Buddhists, became the first active religious leader in Russia to condemn the war. “I think it is wrong; nobody needs this war,” he said in an interview. “We are all living in the 21st century, all of us want to live peacefully, each country wants to develop. I think the Ukrainian side, of course…