London: A slick, wildly popular Russian propaganda video that casts Russians as heroic invaders and warns the West "don't mess with me" was secretly funded by the Russian Orthodox Church, its makers have claimed.

The church commissioned the video from a viral internet studio established as a kind of Russian "Funny or Die" – previous hits include a man groping 1000 women's breasts then shaking hands with Vladimir Putin.

The same group is almost certainly behind a video released late last year that features Mr Putin riding a bear firing laser beams out of its eyes, and which blames Ukraine and the West for shooting down MH17 in an attempt to provoke a war.

"I - Russian Invader", the latest video that went viral in the old Eastern bloc with over 5.5 million views in the three weeks since its release, unapologetically paints Russia as a nation of invaders and occupiers who improved every country they conquered.