BIG: Tucker Carlson in Russia already, to interview President Putin, Musk supports.

Yes and I'll stand with them!

 

Major Archbishop Shevchuk: Russia's 10-year war on Ukraine is 'genocide'


Major Archbishop Sviatoslav Shevchuk, the leader of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church, is pictured during a service in the Cathedral of the Mother of God in Zarvanytsia, April 25, 2022. (OSV News photo/Ukrainian Catholic Church)

(OSV News) ─ Russia's war on Ukraine, now at the 10-year mark, aims to "eliminate the existence of the whole nation," warned the leader of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church.

"We can testify that what is happening right now in Ukraine is genocide," said Major Archbishop Sviatoslav Shevchuk. "A state power (Russia) has … decided to eliminate the existence of a whole nation. People are killed in Ukraine because they are Ukrainians."

The archbishop joined Archbishop Visvaldas Kulbokas, papal nuncio to Ukraine, for a Feb. 14 online presentation titled "2014-2024: Ten Years of War in Ukraine."

The webinar was organized by Aid to the Church in Need, which under the guidance of the pope provides pastoral and humanitarian assistance to the persecuted church in more than 145 countries. Founded in 1947 to support post-World War II victims, ACN counts more than 5,000 projects per year.

Since Russia launched its full-scale attack on Ukraine Feb. 24, 2022, ACN has supplied $17.7 million in aid for priests and religious sisters, seminarian formation, trauma healing and vehicle purchases to provide transportation for outreach.

Joining the archbishops for the webinar were Maria Lozano, ACN's head of press, and ACN International executive director Regina Lynch, who announced that ACN's 2024 Lenten campaign will focus on Ukraine.

"With so much conflict and unrest around the world at present, we are … in real danger that Ukraine could be forgotten as global attention moves on from one crisis to the next," said Lynch. "We at ACN are determined that this does not happen."

Major Archbishop Shevchuk agreed "the war in Ukraine is becoming more and more forgotten," adding that "we can save many lives in the future" by continuing to speak out about the long-running war.

Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine continues attacks begun in 2014 with the illegal annexation of Crimea and the military backing of separatists in Ukraine's Luhansk and Donetsk regions. Between 2014 and 2021, some 14,400 Ukrainians were killed and 39,000 injured, according to the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights.

Ukraine's government states that since February 2022, Russia has killed more than 10,200 Ukrainian civilians and injured some 19,300, while committing close to 125,389 documented war crimes -- including "wilful killing, torture, rape and other sexual violence," according to a November 2023 U.N. commission of inquiry report.

An estimated 3.7 million individuals are internally displaced within Ukraine, according to the International Organization for Migration, part of the U.N. network. More than 6.3 million Ukrainians have sought safety abroad since February 2022, while Ukraine claims more than 2 million Ukrainians have been deported to the Russian Federation.

Two joint reports from the New Lines Institute and the Raoul Wallenberg Center for Human Rights have determined Russia's invasion constitutes genocide under the Genocide Convention. In March 2023, the International Criminal Court issued arrest warrants for Russian President Vladimir Putin and his commissioner for children's rights, Maria Alekseyevna Lvova-Belova, for the unlawful deportation and transfer of 19,546 children from occupied areas of Ukraine to the Russian Federation.

Major Archbishop Shevchuk said "the children in Ukraine are the most vulnerable part" of the nation's society, which has been broadly traumatized particularly during the past two years of Russian aggression.

He said more than 500 children have been officially listed as killed in the war, with over 1,200 wounded, many of them losing limbs and requiring prosthetics.

He thanked Cardinal Matteo Zuppi of Bologna, president of the Italian's Catholic bishops' conference, for his efforts under Pope Francis to secure the release of kidnapped Ukrainian children, while admitting "we don't know" exactly "how efficient was the mission … and how many children were liberated."

Archbishop Kulbokas agreed, saying "up to now, the results have been very minimal."

With just under 390 children returned so far, Major Archbishop Shevchuk said that "if we united our efforts on different levels -- diplomatic, humanitarian, even with the special assistance of journalists from different countries -- more and more children from Russia will be rescued and will be able to come back … to their home again."

The profound damage to Ukraine inflicted by Russia's war, which impacts every aspect of daily life, has compelled the church to "(discover) a new way to give to our people spiritual and pastoral care," one that in particular addresses "people in sorrow, in grief and those who have lost their dearest members of the family," said Major Archbishop Shevchuk.

"The future of Ukraine, the future of the church, depends on how we will be able to respond to this huge need of people in Ukraine to overcome the war trauma," he said.

For many Ukrainians, such trauma may be hidden by the very fact of survival, said Archbishop Kulbokas, noting he has met families who have lost members "five or six days" after a strike due to stress-related heart attacks. Cancer, immunological and heart disease are on the rise as well, he said.

Returning prisoners of war, many subjected to torture while in Russian detention, struggle to heal, said Archbishop Kulbokas.

Trauma has "touched the heart of Ukraine, which is the family," said Major Archbishop Shevchuk, citing the challenges of ministering to families of those killed, injured, missing in action and captured by Russian forces.

"I am constantly giving lists of prisoners to the Vatican and to authorities," he said, adding that "whole families" of those missing experience "constant spiritual and psychological torture."

Among those taken prisoner by Russian occupiers are Redemptorist Fathers Ivan Levitsky and Bohdan Geleta, who were disappeared in November 2022 after refusing to leave their Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church of the Nativity of the Most Holy Theotokos in Berdiansk. A human rights activist recently reported the transfer of Father Levitsky to Russia, but Major Archbishop Shevchuk said, "We don't know if they are alive or already killed" since "nobody gives us any information."

Under Russian religious persecution -- which saw one Russian-installed official ban the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church in occupied Zaporizhzhia -- "there is no Catholic priest" anymore in the occupied territories of eastern and southern Ukraine, where churches have been confiscated, so that "people are praying in their homes," he said.

Major Archbishop Shevchuk said that some 7 million Ukrainians are experiencing a "food emergency," as the war continues and the "first euphoria of humanitarian assistance" from a number of global supporters has faded.

Parishes in eastern, southern and central Ukraine are key in receiving and hosting internally displaced persons who are "trying to establish themselves in the nearest peaceable city," he said.

The Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church is working to reeducate clergy and religious to provide "psychological, physical and spiritual support" to the populace, he said, adding that teachers and other professionals have also asked to participate in the training.

Major Archbishop Shevchuk invited those who have doubts about the scale of Russia's atrocities in Ukraine to "come and see.

"Visit those people who are injured, or the families of those killed," he said. "Come and see; come and touch the wounds of the people."

-

Source:
https://www.detroitcatholic.com/new...uk-russias-10-year-war-on-ukraine-is-genocide

 

Putin, the United States elections, and the upcoming Conclave - by Roberto de Mattei



(February 14, 2024)

A mantle of concern looms these weeks over the decision-making centers of the Western world. On Jan. 24, General Patrick Sanders, chief of staff of His Majesty's Army, said that British nationals may be called upon in the not-too-distant future to fight against Russia (https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-68086188). For Dutch Admiral Rob Bauer, head of the NATO Military Committee, it is also necessary to prepare for an imminent conflict (https://www.standard.co.uk/news/wor...ral-rob-bauer-brussels-cold-war-b1133399.html). In the same days, the Swedish Minister of Civil Defense, Carl-Oskar Bohlin, said that everyone must prepare for the worst-case scenario, such as a war with Russia, before it is too late (https://www.anews.com.tr/world/2024/01/19/could-russia-go-to-war-with-sweden).

https://nypost.com/2024/01/15/news/germany-preparing-for-russia-to-start-world-war-3/). Confidential papers state that Russia could launch cyber attacks and other forms of hybrid warfare against Europe, starting with Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania.

Meanwhile, "Steadfast Defender 2024," the largest NATO exercise since the Cold War on Russia's borders, involving 90,000 soldiers, has begun. The exercise will last until the end of May and will involve units from all 31 member countries of the alliance plus candidate member Sweden. On the other hand, Russia, China and Iran form an increasingly solid Eurasian bloc that has renewed its challenge to the West through joint military exercises announced for March in the Indian Ocean.

Vladimir Putin denies having any military plans against Europe, but everyone remembers that until the day before the Feb. 22 aggression, the Kremlin leader categorically denied the existence of any plan to invade Ukraine. The Russian blitzkrieg failed, and Ukraine could have pushed the invader back beyond its borders if it had obtained decisive help from the West from the outset, but Biden's policy has always been to provide the minimum of arms and military assistance necessary not to lose the war, but not enough to win it. However, for those under attack, non-win means defeat. Putin asks the West to stop helping Ukraine to achieve peace. But the peace that would reign would be that of the victors, the neo-Soviet pax destined to extend to the Baltic countries and all that was the communist empire.

Putin's strength lies in the West's psychological weakness, fueled by a "hybrid warfare" that uses disinformation and media campaigns to destabilize the enemy camp. One of the most successful operations of this psychological warfare was the more than two-hour interview Putin gave on Feb. 8 to American talk show host Tucker Carlson. Philosopher Renato Cristin compared it to the interview that Italian journalist Gianni Minà was granted, in 1987, by Fidel Castro to convince Westerners that Cuba was a socialist paradise, that the Cold War was caused by Yankee imperialism, and that the Soviets were instead the quintessence of pacifism. The fact that emerges from both interviews, Cristin writes, is that the West is evil, while Russia, the Soviet one before and the Putin one today, would be "the good made state." "It is bizarre that a star journalist like Carlson does not realize that when one goes to interview an autocrat, one loses, inevitably, one's freedom, crushed by the need to submit to the rule of communicative tyranny" (https://www.corrispondenzaromana.it...ntervista-in-ginocchio-un-format-sempreverde/).

It is precisely this psychological submission by the West to Russia that makes the situation extremely dangerous, opening a favorable window for Russian military intervention in Eastern Europe in the coming months. The Nov. 5 U.S. elections will, as always, be a decisive turning point in international politics. Never before, however, have the candidates on both sides of the aisle, Democratic and Republican, been presented with such a problematic situation as the current one.

Joe Biden, according to a December 2023 Gallup poll, is the least popular president in U.S. history. The U.S. president's mental and physical condition became a political issue after U.S. Attorney Robert Hur, who investigated allegations against Biden of leaking military secrets, questioned his mental condition. In his investigative report, Hur cleared Biden of the charges, but with serious judgments about his mental capacity: He is a, "“sympathetic, well-meaning, elderly man," he said, but "with a poor memory," which is "significantly limited." (https://www.justice.gov/storage/report-from-special-counsel-robert-k-hur-february-2024.pdf) But even Biden's opponent, Donald Trump, stumbles over words and is not immune to gaffes and disconnected phrases. Moreover, if Biden is the least popular president, Trump has been the most controversial and could receive convictions in the four criminal trials ahead of him. It is amazing how the world's leading power has failed to express younger, more efficient and credible candidates than those currently running for the White House.

What is certain is that the nine months of campaigning that Trump and Biden face, and also the two months of joint leadership, which will follow the eventual victory of one contender, will be a time of potential chaos, in which the specter of a "civil war" between the two conflicting Americas is being considered by many observers.

This is not the only factor of chaos on the horizon. "Civil war," in the sense of a violent doctrinal clash, is also being talked about within the Church. The health condition of Pope Francis is no mystery. Everyone knows that they are bad and could plummet at any moment. The conclave that is being prepared will be decisive for the future of the Church, which appears today as a wasteland. This does not escape the masters of psychological warfare who will try by all means to condition the election of the next Pontiff, through social media campaigns, the financing of Russophile groups, the infiltration of agents provocateurs into the Catholic world, the bribery and blackmail of bishops and cardinals. This could happen in the same months in which a hybrid war of military and political pressure, cyber attacks and migrant invasions seems set to attack Europe.

Within this framework, Putin is not interested in a conservative or progressive pope, but in a champion of disarmament who sees Russia as a bulwark against the corrupt West. The massive "Psyop" (psychological operation) under way involves a part of the conservative-traditionalist Catholic world, which while protesting loudly against "the dictator Pope," genuflects before a Kremlin despot. Thus the flags of Eurasia will fly high and those of the West are lowered. Rome continues to be the center of the world, and if Divine Providence does not give the Church a courageous and combative pope, the fate of the West will be sealed, as it would have been if St. Leo the Great had not risen out of chaos in the fifth century and St. Pius V a thousand years later.

-

Source:
https://rorate-caeli.blogspot.com/2024/02/putin-united-states-elections-and.html#more

 

I don't accept that Putin invaded the Ukraine simply, or even partially, merely to attack its Catholics. It is undeniable that the Ukrainian regime had been pursuing a policy of pursuing war against its Eastern territories, which are mostly ethnically Russian. We can't assume that because a people are Catholic or partially Catholic, they are necessarily right in all cases. If that assumption was correct, we'd have to approve of the Italian invasion of Abyssinia, to take another example. Or the Argentinian invasion of the Falklands, to take another. Catholics in wars can be in an awkward position. It is natural for them to be patriotic towards their own country, nor are they condemned by the Church for fighting for it. Yet, their country might not be objectively in the right. The obvious example would be the German Catholics who fought for their country in WWII.

 

Genocide is a loaded word. In light of what is happening in Gaza, and considering the circumstances and choices of the Ukraine in the last ten years or so, it is obscene to use the term in this context.

 

That's a lucid and appropriate article. However, the way to deal with the risks of Russian aggression is not to waste treasure and blood in wars on the Russian frontiers. The Russians seem to be achieving technical military superiority, while the Western leadership pursues international sexual perversion and insane climate change policies. We need to return to speaking more quietly and carrying a bigger stick. Wars should be last, not first, resort.

 

So well said.

 

I think part of Russia's hostility towards Catholics is due to the fact that the Fatima message coincidentally occurred months before Lenin's revolution, which deals a blow to the legacy of Russian nationalism that so extols the glories of the Soviet Empire. (based mainly on Russia's role in defeating Nazism). This entire contrast between Fatima and Russian nationalism is amplified due to the decrees of the Holy See that absolutely prohibit the Catholic faithful from joining communist parties, which is equivalent to saying that at least 74 years of the history of the Russian people in the 20th century constitute a period of opposition to the Mother of God so venerated by the Russian people throughout history.

 

I never said at any point that Putin invaded Ukraine (a sovereign country previously recognized by Russia) to persecute Catholics. What I said is that the Catholic Church will have great difficulties in living or even surviving under the Putinist rule, which professes the fundamentalist Russkiy Mir ideology AKA ideology of the "Russian World". This ideology has several dimensions, manifesting itself on a geographic, cultural, ethnic or religious level, being condemned as a heresy in the Orthodox world outside Russian Orthodox Church (ROC). In the religious field, the official Christian religion of the murderous Putin regime is the schismatic ROC, which condemns the existence of Uniatism, meaning conversion to the Catholic Faith while maintaining the Byzantine tradition. Most Ukrainian Catholics are Uniats, they follow the Byzantine tradition.

It is obvious that, despite already having several million faithful, the flourishing Ukrainian Greek-Catholic Church is a minority in Ukraine, the main religious target of the Putinist regime is not the Catholics, it is the national Orthodox churches of Ukraine which are now uniting into a single Ukrainian Orthodox Church, completely independent of the Moscow Patriarchate and recognized by the Patriarchate of Constantinople. However, in essence, Byzantine-rite Catholicism is the most unacceptable, being officially condemned by the Russian Orthodox Church and also somehow - and this is really freaky - by Pope Francis.

It is today clear that the past method of “uniatism”, understood as the union of one community to the other, separating it from its Church, is not the way to re–establish unity. (Joint Declaration from Patriarch Kirill and Pope Francis, in Havana, Cuba, February 12, 2016)
​

In short, what I said earlier was that a pro-Western regime in Ukraine, with all its evils, is still more favorable to the life or even survival of the Catholic Church in Ukraine than the Putinist dictatorship. That was why the Catholic Church actively participated in the Maiden coup where the nation of Ukraine strongly refused a status equivalent to that of the Putinite protectorate of Belarus.

This is not my opinion, brother, this is the position expressed daily by the Catholic Church in Ukraine in its information channels. Just go there and check by yourself what they say and fear in the midst of Putinist aggression. And if you, from the comfort of your sofa here in the West, have good reasons to think that they are mistaken, please don't tell me, write to them and explain them your good reasons.

 

As I said above, write to the leader of Ukrainian Catholics and explain him your good reasons. My opinion on this matter is irrelevant even within the forum. And this is not even my opinion but the official position of the Catholic Church in Ukraine, which is contrary to the Putinist narrative.

I'm sorry if this is seen as a bad thing by some, but I am Catholic and will stand with them.


Ukrainian Catholic Leader Prays at Mass Grave in Bucha
https://www.ncregister.com/cna/ukrainian-catholic-leader-prays-at-mass-grave-in-bucha

 

Right.

 

Archbishop Borys A. Gudziak warns: If Russia wins, the Ukrainian Catholic Church faces ‘eradication’


PHILADELPHIA — As Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine reaches the two-year mark Feb. 24, OSV News sat down with Metropolitan Archbishop Borys A. Gudziak of the Ukrainian Catholic Archeparchy of Philadelphia, recently returned from his latest visit to Ukraine, for his insights on the war.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

OSV News: After two years of full-scale invasion and 10 years of aggression by Russia, how would you describe the overall outlook of the Ukrainian people?


Archbishop Gudziak: It’s really quite amazing, because there’s so much devastation, there’s so much death, there’s so much displacement, and yet the people are pretty clear in their resolve. … There are principles we have to defend, and we really don’t have any choice, because wherever there is Russian occupation, there is genocide. So, if we don’t defend ourselves, we’ll be killed.

We know we have to get the job done. We need help to get that job done, but we know nobody is going to send troops to help us in Ukraine.

We gave up our nuclear arsenal unilaterally in 1994 (under the Budapest Memorandum), receiving security pledges and guarantees from the United States, Great Britain and Russia, who (promised) not only to not invade or demonstrate aggression, but to not even use economic power to shake the sovereignty or independence of Ukraine. … You had the global community applauding the first nuclear disarmament.

(But now) Ukraine’s territorial integrity, its sovereignty has been violated brutally. Ukrainians realize they have to defend themselves and they will do so.

OSV News: Western support has begun to lag over the last year, with some U.S. lawmakers actively opposing aid to Ukraine. How would you respond to those calls?

Archbishop Gudziak: It’s so important to understand what the consequences of further Russian occupation may be. … We’re at (approximately) 17% of Ukrainian territory under occupation. That has led to 8 million people crossing the border (with 2 million since returning). If, let’s say, even half of Ukraine came under a Russian occupation, you will have at least 10 more million refugees.

And the displacement of people, but also the (disruption) of global political, diplomatic, economic, food (and ecological) systems … has led to a hit on all of us.

Your pocketbook has been hit by the Russian invasion. Oil prices, food prices went up because of the Russian invasion. Hungry people are starving in Africa or the Middle East because of the Russian invasion.

If there’s an advance, it’s going to hit you in your pocket. It’s going to further affect and destabilize global security. And it will empower all the ruffians of the world, whether it’s North Korea, Iran or people who are not yet showing that kind of aggression, but (are) just waiting for a signal that nobody’s watching anyway.

I appeal to conservative Catholics who are concerned about subjectivism, who understand what Pope Benedict was saying when (as then-Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger) he observed that we’re moving into a period of the dictatorship of relativism. This is what (Russian Federation President Vladimir) Putin wants. He’s not aiming to convince you of Russian righteousness. He just wants you to doubt democracy. He wants you to doubt the truth, to believe in nothing. And this is diabolical.

(Putin) has killed for almost a quarter-century — the vicious bombing of Grozny, the capital of Chechnya (in February 2000); the death of journalists and political opposition figures that have happened under his rule; the attack, invasion and annexation of part of Georgia in 2008. In 2024, this war (in Ukraine) is not two years old. It’s 10 years old.

We cannot be naive about this. Dear fellow Catholics — your fellow Catholics, your fellow Christians, Protestants and others will not be able to pray freely. Their churches will be closed (and) taken over by the Russian Orthodox Church, as it did with Ukrainian Catholic churches after the liquidation of (its) visible structures. The church can never be liquidated because it’s the Body of Christ. But the persecution of the church is something that follows us since the time of Christ, since the time of the Apostles.

I don’t know if people realize that (many of the popes in the first four centuries of the church) were martyrs. It’s not impossible that this godless brutalism can move into the Western European continent. It’s not impossible that a godless rule, an atheist, aggressive, anti-democratic rule could be in Rome and the bishops of Rome could again become martyrs.

There is no freedom of religion in Russia. Even the Russian Orthodox Church is fully shackled. And the head of the church, Patriarch Kirill, uses the language of Islamic militants — of jihad — to encourage participation in the war.

There’s not a single Ukrainian Catholic parish registered in Russia. Certain (faith) confessions are already illegal.

OSV News: Two joint reports from the New Lines Institute and the Raoul Wallenberg Center for Human Rights have concluded that Russia has breached the Genocide Convention. Yet the 153 nations party to the convention have been slow to take action. Why?

Archbishop Gudziak: People don’t understand because they use their own categories. They judge or perceive on the basis of their own experience. We have not had an occupation in the United States, really, in historical memory. We haven’t had bombs falling on us, except for 9/11, for example, or isolated acts, which really traumatize us.

There are bombs falling on civilian structures throughout Ukraine every single day — bombs, rockets, drones. And this is something we (in the U.S.) cannot relate to. If there’s a bomb or a mass shooting with 20 people killed, it is a great tragedy. And it happens at home, it’s close. But there are probably between 300 and 400 people killed in Ukraine every day. That includes the soldiers on both sides.

A lot of people (in the U.S.) say, “We don’t want to go into those long-term wars.” And they compare. But Iraq and Afghanistan are not Ukraine and Russia — it’s a bad comparison. Ukrainians are not giving up to the Taliban. They’re not running away. The president is there. The people are there. The government is there. The parliament is there. A million Ukrainians volunteered, joined the armed forces in the last two years. One million people are putting their lives at risk.

OSV News: How does the current war fit into the long record of Russian aggression against Ukraine and in particular the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church?

Archbishop Gudziak: It’s the present image of what happened in Bucha, Irpin, Borodyanka, Mariupol (sites of recent Russian mass atrocities in Ukraine). But it’s also the history. There were … millions killed by wars, genocide and genocidal policies like the Holodomor or the Holocaust.

All of this at the hands, in one form or another, of totalitarian powers, or wars that were generated by empires.

Putin has said there is no such thing really as Ukraine, there isn’t a separate independent Ukrainian people, (and) the Ukrainian language is just a dialect. All of that will be erased, and it’s not a question of hypothesis.

The Ukrainian Catholic Church gets eradicated as a legal, visible entity every time there’s a Russian occupation. It happened in the 18th century. It happened a few times in the 19th century as the Russian Empire grew or consolidated its hold on territory after the partitions of Poland. The Tsarists … came to Lviv (and) arrested and deported the head of the Ukrainian Catholic Church to Russia. The Soviets did it in the 20th century.

And now we see it (happening) in the occupied territories.

OSV News: What can Catholics do to support Ukraine at this moment?

Archbishop Gudziak: First of all, we should pray. The Lord is the Lord of history. … And I’ve seen too many miracles. Our church was illegal for 45 years … it was decimated. Today, 35 years later, there are 3,000 priests again, and we have the youngest episcopacy and clergy in the world.

Second, be informed. There’s a lot of disinformation. Be careful of the Tucker Carlsons of the world.

Ukrainians are very grateful to all who pray, who advocate and who help. There’s a special respect for America.

(Ukrainians are) going to fight and defend God-given principles, God-given dignity, so that our children and grandchildren don’t have to suffer. … We have to stop (Russia’s aggression), no matter what the cost.

Source:
https://thedialog.org/international...-ukrainian-catholic-church-faces-eradication/

 

All this that is described above would never have occurred had it not been for NATO's imperialist expansion. On what authority were the Obama administration acting when they sponsored and assisted the Maidan revolution? Why were several treaties between NATO and Russia broken by the Western side? Angela Merkel actually publicly admitted that they were cynically made 'just to buy time'-in other words, NATO lied.

This conflict is not a simple black-and-white issue. If it concludes in fulfilling the prophecies, it can rightly be said that we in the West brought it upon ourselves. For goodness sake, they're attempting to effectively abolish marriage here in Ireland. We're determinedly implementing all that Our Lady warned us against.

 

That is partially true, but it follows the narrative of Vladimir Putin, who is a murderous dictator and a liar who is as Christian as his predecessor Josef Stalin. This perspective of understanding that NATO expanded to the East is not necessarily wrong, but to be more precise, what actually happened was that the ex-communist Eastern countries asked to join NATO and this accession was not even automatic, it was heavily negotiated in some cases. And proof that this perspective is more correct is the fact that Putinist Russia itself initially also tried to join NATO. And I'm not saying that NATO represents good versus evil, that's not my view...

Another common mistake in this type of simplistic analysis is believing that Ukraine would now be a free and happy country if the 2014 coup had failed. In fact, in this coup, not only American intelligence was involved, the intelligence of the Putinist regime was also involved. If the pro-Russian side had won in Ukraine in 2014, at best Ukraine would today be a Putinist protectorate similar to Belarus, where Christian priests and journalists are imprisoned for condemning war, where KGB remains active and with the same name since the time of the Soviet Union. Not everything would be bad, they would probably have a determined policy to combat the gay lobby, which would be a great thing, but that would not compensate for everything else that the country would lose under a Putinist dictatorship, especially in terms of religious freedom. It was no coincidence that the Catholic Church in Ukraine actively participated in the Maidan events, taking sides on one anti-Putin side.

Ukraine is much more than a chessboard between the godless governments of the West and the Eastern despotic Putinism, where the will of the Ukrainian people has no value. Ukraine is a sovereign nation with its own culture and identity, within which the Byzantine-rite Catholic Church is experiencing exponential growth since becoming independent from the Soviet regime, something extremely uncomfortable for the official religion of the Putin regime. I value the will of my Ukrainian Catholic brothers much more than any globalist narrative, be it the Western NWO or its antagonistic Putinist with its communist allies China and North Korea. The only world order that I support is the Roman Catholic and Apostolic one.

And I believe that this vitality of the Byzantine Rite Catholic Church in Ukraine is a small sample of what will one day be the conversion of Russia to the true faith as it was promised by Our Lady. From their near annihilation by the Soviet regime, the Ukrainian Greek-Catholic Church has now millions of believers, with the youngest priests and bishops of the Catholic Church. In 2005, its headquarters were transferred from Lviv to the capital Kiev where the first conversion of the people of Russia took place. Perhaps the second conversion also will begin there...



Currently, the biggest obstacle to expansion of Catholic Faith to the East (i.e. the greatest obstacle to the conversion of Russia) is the Putinist regime. Salvation cannot come from the Putinist regime or its official religion, no matter how beautiful their liturgical traditions are. There is no salvation outside the Catholic Church, the only true Orthodox church are the Catholics of the Byzantine rite, they are the other lung through which the body of the true Church breathes. The lungs are inside the body, they are part of it.

 

The current Ukrainian regime may have many defects and it certainly has them. One of them will be its permeability to Western influence, which in our days does not mean a good thing, unfortunately. But this regime has an excellent relationship with the Catholic Church of Ukraine, allowing it all the conditions to live freely and grow within its borders. For example, it was the government of the Jewish "Nazi" Zelensky that approved in 2021 the return of Saint Nicholas Cathedral in Kiev to the Catholic Church. It had been confiscated from Catholics by the Soviet regime.



Source:
https://www.acidigital.com/noticia/...-kiev-sera-devolvida-aos-catolicos-da-ucrania

 

I agree that Putin is a major obstacle to the expansion of the Catholic Faith in the East. However, my opinion is that his opponents, the political establishments of the West, are broadly even greater opponents of the Catholic Faith and that the ultimate defeat of both is necessary. The (approved) prophecies bearing on these events possibly indicate that NATO will be defeated first, with the Russians finally broken by a French Catholic King, followed by the conversion of Russia and her Mohammedan allies (Turkey?). There is no mention of the United States in these prophesies. The recent statement by Donald Trump that he might not help out his European allies if they continue to neglect their NATO contributions might plausibly be relevant.

 

I think there will be a major geological event in the USA that will justify the abandonment of the military alliance with Europe. The first hypothesis that comes to mind is related to the New Madrid fault.

 

We in the West are completely infested with Marxist errors but we still do not truly know communism, unlike Ukrainian or Russian Catholics. In other words, a disgusting gay parade passing through our streets it's immoral and a horror but, despite everything, is much more pleasant than a military column that kills your family, rapes your daughters, destroys your home, your school, your hospital and your church, if you do not submit to them. And a regime that says that your Catholic Faith can only be professed in some limited places authorized by the dictatorial State and where the priest's homily is controlled by the regime, where praying the rosary in public or a procession in honor of Our Lady of Fátima or Lourdes could be considered an attack on the traditional culture of "mother" Russia, it is not a better system than our Western ones. It is not, at least for Catholics it cannot be! And Ukrainian Catholics, more than anyone else, know this very well.

The problem of the west is more of the people, who are in apostasy and they are the ones who are molding this amoral and godless system to their taste and pleasure freely. It was not by communist imposition, but by the free choice of people who rebelled against God, against morals, history, culture and even nature. If people believed in God, and there are still many who do, they could elect good leaders and pass decent laws and policies.

Regarding Muslim participation in the Russian invasion of Europe, we do not need to speculate about future interpretations of the prophecies. It's already happening in Ukraine, where battalions of radical Islamist Putinists are killing Ukrainians.

Putinist Islamist military celebrate the "liberation" of Mariupol, Ukraine:




Putinist Islamist military celebrate the "liberation" of Lysychansk, Ukraine:



The main part of this evil scream says: Allahu Akbar!

 

It doesn't help the Nazi allegations against Ukrainians when kids in a Catholic youth group are painting wolfsangels (I'm sure they just think it's a nationalist symbol, but so did a lot of German Catholics). You can mock Russia's claims all you want but they aren't baseless. Fascism is subtle. Until it isn't.

https://kyiv.omi.org.ua/молодь-нашої-парафії-провідує-поране (link is from the church you posted's website)

Fear that which kills the body, eh? As for Muslim invasion of Europe, you haven't been to Vienna recently if you think that hasn't been going on for a little bit longer than the past couple years.

I'm not saying the Russians are right in all this, but it's not as black and white as you're making it sound.