Right-wing pastor Rick Joyner continues to serve as an apologist for Russian president Vladimir Putin’s government, declaring in a video he posted on Facebook on Friday that the U.S. and Russia would be close allies if it weren’t for George Soros and LGBTQ activists.

“The real key ire that [Vladimir] Putin has raised by liberals, by the left, is because [of] his absolute determination not to let the LGBT community influence Russia,” he said. “He does not want that thing in there [or] the perversion that it brings with it.”

Joyner praised Putin, saying that when the Russian president saw the “perversion” that was “encroaching on the Ukraine and other places, from the E.U., from America, he resolved, no, he’s not going to let that happen to Mother Russia.”

Joyner asserted that Putin also “kicked George Soros out of Russia and said, ‘You don’t come back here, you don’t bring your businesses here,'” and then falsely claimed that Soros responded by funneling money to Republican lawmakers John McCain and Lindsey Graham as part of a supposed deal to get them to attack President Trump for his alleged ties to Russia.

“We need to get to the root of this and what is behind it,” Joyner declared, “and I’m telling you today, it’s the LGBT and George Soros.”