“Orthodox Christians do not attend [protest] rallies”. -Patriarch Kirill

1-25-18    

   In eastern Ukraine, Retired Lieu-Gen. Hodges said, there are about 35,000-40,000 Russia-backed fighters, and around 4,000-5,000 are actual Russian military officers or commanders.

  He said many of the tanks and vehicles operated by both Ukrainian and Russia-backed forces are now covered with reactive armor, a specialized type of plating designed to protect against rocket-propelled grenades and weapons other than small arms.

  He also said Russia-backed commanders have honed tactics that include using drones, artillery, and electronic warfare.  That's allowed Russians forces, for example, to eliminate Ukrainian mortars and artillery units.  He said one Ukrainian unit that was using a U.S.-supplied radar was taken out by Russian rocket fire with surprising speed.  

   “The [Russian] electronic warfare capability; again that’s something we never had to worry with that in Afghanistan and Iraq.  The Ukrainians live in this environment,” he said.  “So you cannot speak on a radio or any device that’s not secure because it’s going to be jammed or intercepted or worse, it’s going to be found and then it’s going to be hit.  Certainly we have the capability to show everybody what Russia is specifically doing in the Donbas, that would be helpful to keep pressure on Russia, to live up to what they've said they're going to do,” he said.    https://en.censor.net.ua/resonance/3046583/exus_army_commander_warns_of_russian_capabilities_in_ukraine

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1-26-18   Czech President Miloš Zeman has become the most influential Kremlin ally in Central Europe.  He holds ceremonial powers as head of state, but his position also allows him to support Russian President Vladimir Putin extensively. In foreign policy, Zeman has often stood contrary to the Czech government, which generally defends the positions of the EU and NATO.

  Like many Kremlin proxies, Zeman often reiterates Kremlin messages, including denying the presence of organized Russian troops in Ukraine, arguing that Crimea is Russian, and demanding that the West lift the sanctions it imposed on Russia.  He is portrayed by Russian propaganda as an independent, strong anti-American leader who adores Putin.  If size of countries is taken into account, Zeman, the president of a country with 10 million people, is the second most quoted European leader in the Russian information space, right after German Chancellor Angela Merkel.  He also serves Chinese interests, even acquiring a Chinese advisor at the Czech Presidential Office.  http://observer.com/2018/01/how-czech-president-milos-zeman-became-vladimir-putins-man/

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11-21-17  

Church leader Patriarch Kirill has warned the apocalypse is “already visible to the naked eye” and only humanity can come together and save it.  https://www.dailystar.co.uk/news/world-news/661677/Apocalypse-Russian-Orthodox-Church-Patriarch-Kirill-Vladimir-Putin-North-Korea-world-war

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2-9-17   Putin himself was baptized (nominally kept secret from his father, a party member); the officiating priest was none other than Patriarch Kirill’s father.   http://carnegieendowment.org/2017/02/09/russian-orthodoxy-and-politics-in-putin-era-pub-67959

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11-12-15    You can read this week on CNN.com that the Russian middle class is “happy” with Putin.  How would you know after 15 years of his decimating all opposition and turning the media into a propaganda machine?  If you’re actually popular you can have a free media and free elections.  Putin knows very well he cannot permit either.

  I was taunted and criticized for a decade for pointing out the trends of Putin’s Russia toward dictatorship.  Now only the most pitiful Putin bootlickers deny what he has done.  Only when he invaded neighboring Ukraine on the darkly familiar pretexts of racial unity and national pride, right on the heels of Olympic glory in Sochi, did my comparisons to Germany in the 1930s become too obvious to roll eyes at....

  I was briefly heckled here (Berlin) at my lecture by what I can only suppose were low-rent Putin fans who didn’t even seem to know who I was. Their line was a Kremlin favorite, calling anyone who suggests standing up to an aggressive invader a “warmonger.”  It’s slightly ironic, since part of my book is about how history teaches us that being ready stand up in small conflicts is the best way to avoid big ones.  Deterrence saves lives while appeasement costs lives—eventually.  -Kasparov  http://www.kasparov.com/blog-post/trump-putin-and-real-fascism/

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12-28-2014      Open letter decrying not only the persecution of believers but de facto church collusion in this persecution:  among other things, churches routinely complied with a requirement that all baptisms, church weddings, communions, and religious funerals be reported to the communist authorities--often with dire consequences for the participants.  The letter, drafted by several lay writers, was originally meant to be a collective statement by as many as two dozen clergymen, including an archbishop.  But everyone except Yakunin and Eshliman backed out. Copies of the letter were sent to senior members of the church hierarchy and to the Soviet government.

   -Yakunin

The reaction was predictable.  In May 1966 Yakunin and Eshliman were defrocked by the Moscow Patriarchate until they repented their criticism of church leadership; their appeal to the Synod was rejected.    https://www.thedailybeast.com/remembering-the-russian-priest-who-fought-the-orthodox-church

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by Anna Arutunyan, Dec. 2014

from the prologue:

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https://books.google.com/books?id=t4WSBQAAQBAJ&pg=PT26&lpg=PT26&dq=putin+bootlickers&source=bl&ots=0HrVeGD74J&sig=onL3eSjduIGsYkdk4z1Dif_ihhE&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjFzMDX14XZAhUQ4WMKHVTkBZ4Q6AEIhAEwEw#v=onepage&q=putin%20bootlickers&f=false

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3-17-2014  Vladimir Spiridonovich Putin, father of Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin, current Russian President, had been an officer of the internal troops of the NKVD up to 1941.  He yielded himself prisoner to the Germans near Vitebsk, [Byelorussia], in the beginning of the war and after Andrey Vlasov formed a collaborationist army voluntarily joined it.  Serving with the Vlasov units and together with the German Army he participated in punitive sanctions against the Polish population.  In 1945 V.S.Putin was taken prisoner by the British.  The documents confirming this fact are kept in classified British archives in London where they were discovered by Viktor Suvorov.

In 1945 V.S. Putin together with other members of the Vlasov army was delivered over by the British to the Soviet Union.  His son, the current President of Russia followed the trade of his father.  He started his service with the KGB (the heir of the NKVD) in his 18 where he rose to a high rank of colonel.   http://euromaidanpress.com/2014/03/17/putins-father-served-in-the-vlasov-army/#arvlbdata

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8-24-2012     Patriarch Kirill pronounced that “Orthodox Christians do not attend [protest] rallies”.  In return Mr Putin has made decisions on property and religious schools which benefit the church.  Last year the Patriarch was granted official residence in the Kremlin, restoring the church-state intimacy of Imperial Russia .

  “Our church does not consider itself an enemy of the state,” a leading Orthodox official, Archpriest Vsevolod Chaplin, said recently.  “The Western idea that the state and the church should be slight rivals and slight enemies is both bizarre and incorrect from an Orthodox point of view”.  That does little, however, to address reservations about the material venality of the Patriarch, with his $30,000 Breguet watch and his recent lawsuit claiming dust from a neighbour’s building work had done 20 million roubles worth of damage to his extremely grand flat.     http://paulvallely.com/archive/?p=5892

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posted 5-9-09, from TASS  The row involving the Patriarch and the former health minister appeared in the limelight last week, although the litigation is in its third year already. As follows from what mass media say, the Patriarch is a party to a lawsuit against his neighbor in the Stalinist era VIP apartment building overlooking the Kremlin. The neighbor’s name is Yuri Shevchenko.  When his apartment was in the process of repairs, dust from construction work reportedly spread one storey higher to have spoiled Patriarch Kirill’'s home.  The plaintiff wants the neighbor pay a hefty sum of 20 million rubles (700,000 dollars).  In compensation the plaintiffs would like to get Shevchenko’s apartment, and also the apartment of his wife nearby. The surgeon, who, as it has turned out during the investigation, has an oncologic disease, is faced with the risk of losing his housing and becoming a debtor as well.

This confusing affair is said to have begun back in 2010. The family of the former health minister, renowned heart surgeon Yuri Shevchenko, bought two apartments at Serafimovich Street, 2, – a landmark building commonly known as the House on the Embankment.  He had no prior knowledge that his neighbor upstairs was Vladimir Gundyayev (the secular name of Patriarch Kirill).

In the spring of the same year Shevchenko was summoned to court.  Patriarch Kirill’'s proxies said dust from repair work in the surgeon’s apartment spoiled Patriarch’s 144-square meter suite.  The demanded compensation looked huge – 20 million rubles. The plaintiffs said that according to experts’ conclusions, presented to court, the dust contained some tiny particles which “in case of prolonged contact may cause adverse effects on human health and trigger oncologic diseases.”

The court’s ruling was in Patriarch Kirill’'s favor.  It obliged Shevchenko to pay the 20 million. The heart surgeon’'s apartment was put under arrest.  But the court estimated the property at 15 million, so the ex-minister may not only to lose the apartment, but also remain neck-deep in debt.

Of particular interest to the yellow press and the Internet surfers is the following circumstance.  The Patriarch himself is not involved in court hearings.  He is represented by a woman called Lidiya Leonova, who has not presented any documents confirming her powers as Patriarch Kirill’'s representative to date.  The press office of the head of the Russian Orthodox Church has refused to explain the reasons why the woman appears in court on behalf of the Patriarch.

As magazine Ogonyok wrote several years ago, Lidiya Leonova and Vladimir Gundyayev have been on friendly terms for more than 30 years.   A number of commercial businesses, somehow connected with the former metropolitan, are registered at her address.   http://www.politicalforum.com/index.php?threads/scandal-vip-apartment-of-russian-orthodox-church-patriarch-in-focus-of-growing-row.241535/

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