Russian Invasion of Ukraine

[TX-Beau]

I don't really care to stop lecturing and start funding countries in Africa that promote Queer genocide thanks.

Bad diplomacy is hopping into bed with any monster needing a tank.

 

[rareboy]

Moscow Mitch is singing his swan song now and laying the delay in aid at the feet of Tucker Carlson and Trump.

Pretty rich coming from a man who spent his whole career delaying or killing legislation.

Mitch McConnell says Tucker Carlson and Trump's waffling delayed crucial Ukraine aid

The Senate Republican leader pointed to Carlson's "demonization of Ukraine," along with Trump's "mixed views" and resistance to additional aid as reasons it's taken so long to pass.

www.nbcnews.com

 

[rareboy]

Biden secretly approved the decision to send more than 100 of the longer-range missiles in mid-February, as well as more of the cluster munition variant as part of a $300 million aid package in March, according to the New York Times.


Send more.

 

[rareboy]

And Peskov and KremlinCo. are pissed, launching another major missile attack...most missiles being brought down, but some doing damage to energy infrastructure. In response, UA hit an airport and a few oil refineries. Peskov's sputtering about the ATACMS is a pretty good indication that the Kremlin had not counted on continuing US support for Ukraine. Meanwhile, Blinken has indicated that if China does not end support for equipping RZZia, the US will take care of it for them.

Hopefully Congress is also getting the message that rrrZZZia and China are 2 sides of the same coin. This is now entirely an existential struggle between fascist empires and western democracies.

 

[rareboy]

A day of losses as rrrZZia just continues to throw more and more meatbags at taking more of the Donbas villages...all worth it to the Kremlin for the minerals.

 

[rareboy]

And in the meantime today...another day of slaughter as rrrZZZianz push their positions. Interestingly enough though, there aren't the stories emerging of shortages and low morale mobiks deserting ...which sad;y means that the Kremlin must now have been able to gear up war production in order to arm and clothe their meatbags at least.

 

[Kulindahr]

I love watching the numbers of vehicles and fuel tanks keep climbing! I wonder if they can round up enough horses and wagons when they run out of trucks.

 

[Kulindahr]

Just heard on the tube that Russians in Kaliningrad are jamming GPS for planes and ships in northern NATO countries. How is this not an act of war, given that many planes and ships rely on GPS to guide them?

 

[rareboy]

France does not immediately rule out the supply of troops to aid Ukraine if rrrZZia breaks the front line.

And onward to the next 10K mobiks.

 

[NotHardUp1]

Moscow Mitch is singing his swan song now and laying the delay in aid at the feet of Tucker Carlson and Trump.

Pretty rich coming from a man who spent his whole career delaying or killing legislation.

Mitch McConnell says Tucker Carlson and Trump's waffling delayed crucial Ukraine aid

The Senate Republican leader pointed to Carlson's "demonization of Ukraine," along with Trump's "mixed views" and resistance to additional aid as reasons it's taken so long to pass.

www.nbcnews.com

McConnell made the Sunday News Talk shows last week and he made a point of throwing Carlson to the wolves.

Methinks the senator is trying to burnish his legacy by trying to sound more sane than Trump, but he, like Pence and Barr, will be forever tied to Trump's concrete block as they sink to the bottom of the historical sea. They are GUILTY of complicity, silence, enablement, and active support of a man they knew was guilty of the crimes of his impeachment, and others we've not even learned of yet.

 

[KaraBulut]

...So I doubt the other Orthodox churches will be saying much of anything, even if they're as scandalized as I am by clergy at the mother monastery of East Slavic Christianity advocating violence against their neighbors.

^ I hope that the FSB Orthodox Church is left in ruins after this, but am not optimistic. The power brokers in the Kremlin and the Church all know how to transition from one autocratic kleptocracy to the next by mutually supporting each other...although they all seem to inexplicably still support PutinCo., even though it does not seem in their best interests.

There is an interesting article in The Atlantic entitled, "Clash of the Patriarchs". There's been a lot of discussion about the Russian Orthodox Church support for Putin's decision to invade Ukraine. What wasn't discussed was the schism in the Orthodox Church that the Russian Orthodox Church was opposed to- namely, the separation of Ukraine's Orthodox Church from the Russian Orthodox Church that Ukraine begat.

Clash of the Patriarchs

A hard-line Russian bishop backed by the political might of the Kremlin could split the Orthodox Church in two.

www.theatlantic.com

In late August of 2018, Patriarch Kirill, the leader of the Russian Orthodox Church, flew from Moscow to Istanbul on an urgent mission. He brought with him an entourage—a dozen clerics, diplomats, and bodyguards—that made its way in a convoy to the Phanar, the Orthodox world’s equivalent of the Vatican, housed in a complex of buildings just off the Golden Horn waterway, on Istanbul’s European side.

Kirill was on his way to meet Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew, the archbishop of Constantinople and the most senior figure in the Orthodox Christian world. Kirill had heard that Bartholomew was preparing to cut Moscow’s ancient religious ties to Ukraine by recognizing a new and independent Orthodox Church in Kyiv. For Kirill and his de facto boss, Russian President Vladimir Putin, this posed an almost existential threat. Ukraine and its monasteries are the birthplace of the Russian Orthodox Church; both nations trace their spiritual and national origins to the Kyiv-based kingdom that was converted from paganism to Christianity about 1,000 years ago. If the Church in Ukraine succeeded in breaking away from the Russian Church, it would seriously weaken efforts to maintain what Putin has called a “Russian world” of influence in the old Soviet sphere. And the decision was in the hands of Bartholomew, the sole figure with the canonical authority to issue a “tomos of autocephaly” and thereby bless Ukraine’s declaration of religious independence.

War and the Church in Ukraine

Vladimir Putin’s war to reverse Ukraine’s independence includes religion. For centuries, the Russian Orthodox Church bolstered Moscow’s rule by wielding ecclesiastical authority over Ukrainian churches. Since early 2019, Ukraine has had a self-governing Orthodox Church of Ukraine. Russia’s...

www.usip.org

Why the Russian Orthodox Church Supports the War in Ukraine

By using force to try to keep the splintering parts of the once-unified ROC together, Patriarch Kirill is only driving them away.

carnegieendowment.org

 

[Kulindahr]

What wasn't discussed was the schism in the Orthodox Church that the Russian Orthodox Church was opposed to- namely, the separation of Ukraine's Orthodox Church from the Russian Orthodox Church that Ukraine begat.

Technically that's not a schism, it's a change in jurisdiction. Orthodoxy has had national churches with their own heads for a very long time. It's not a schism till one or both excommunicates the other.

It could become a schism if the two branches in Ukraine decide to ignore each other.

Which BTW has been discussed with regard to Russia by several of the autocephalous (self-headed) Orthodox churches.

 

[rareboy]

Since Ukrainians have been ejecting the rrrzznns from the church, I do wonder if Kirill's ROC influence is fading fast among the younger adherents to religion.

The ROC has enjoyed an outsized role in the politics of Ukraine for too long.

 

[TX-Beau]

I can't imagine anyone in the Ukranian church ever wanting to have anything to do with Kiril ever again.

 

[KaraBulut]

Technically that's not a schism, it's a change in jurisdiction...

It could become a schism if the two branches in Ukraine decide to ignore each other.

No, it is a schism. It even has a Wikipedia page called "2018 Moscow–Constantinople schism".

2018 Moscow–Constantinople schism - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

When the Ukrainian Orthodox church was granted a plan for autocephaly, with intent to create a patriarchal head separate from Moscow patriarchy, the Russian Orthodox Church withdrew communion from the Church in Istanbul (which they still refer to as "Constantinople").

Plainly put, the ROC considers itself autonomous and the UOC is still with the Constantinople church. That is a schism.

Since Ukrainians have been ejecting the rrrzznns from the church, I do wonder if Kirill's ROC influence is fading fast among the younger adherents to religion.

The ROC has enjoyed an outsized role in the politics of Ukraine for too long.

Here's the seat of the Church in Istanbul:

After the schism, Putin started pouring millions of dollars into the ROC monastery in Athos, Greece.
This is the original monastery:

This is what it looks like now:

That's a lot of buildings considering there's supposedly 50-60 ROC monks on Athos. Makes one wonder what plans Putin has for a massive complex that opens to the Aegean...

 

[rareboy]

 

[rareboy]

I can't imagine anyone in the Ukranian church ever wanting to have anything to do with Kiril ever again.

That would be correct. And has been for some time. Kirill is a Kremlin plant; an FSB agent installed to make sure that the ROC does not become an instrument to overthrow the gang of thugs that control the country.

The ROC clergy were discovered in many instances to be agents working on behalf of the FSB to undermine Ukrainian independence and to assist in the invasion in 2022.

The sooner that all of the ROC spies and enforcers are permanently driven back to Mokba, the better.

 

[rareboy]

And meanwhile, the ROC is supporting the sacrifice of hundreds of thousands of rrrzzzian serfs to regain the mineral rich regions and rights to the oil in the Azov and Black Sea:

 

[rareboy]

So Shoigu has resigned as Rzzzn minister of defense, the long anticipated invasion of the Kharkiv Oblast has started and things are dire in Vovchansk.

The rxxznz are taking heavier losses...but have taken several villages over the last few days.

 

[rareboy]

Things are very serious in the region east of Kharkiv right now. The Kremlin has focussed all their resources in this area over the last 10 days with the intention of taking and levelling the city of Kharkiv and depopulating a zone west of Belgorad.

And Igor Konashenkov, the Russian Ministry of Defese spokesperson, reportedly resigned. Certainly the losses for not much gain in this campaign must be pretty hard to report to the Kremlin.