Putin and the Pope, war and peace.

Pope Francis, who has been criticizing armaments since the beginning of his pontificate and who has been expressing support for Ukraine almost every week for two years now, mentioned several causes of the war. The main Russophiles do not take note but repeat what the Pope was wrong about. This was gradually proven by Putin, whose war caused enormous damage not only to Ukraine but also to Russians and people with low incomes all over the world. This is also shown by a brief calculation of Russian losses and the costs of the war.

The Soviet Union, ruled by Communists from Moscow, whose collapse Putin describes as the greatest disaster of the 20th century, expanded its territory by forcibly occupying other states, whose territory it then Russified. Mainly when Stalin and Hitler divided Europe, and then Moscow occupied the Baltic states. The USSR collapsed in 1991 due to its economic incompetence caused by the communists. After the collapse of the USSR, Ukraine renounced nuclear weapons, and Russia, in 1994, committed to guaranteeing its freedom, independence, and territorial integrity. (Budapest Memorandum)

In 2013-14, mass protests began in Ukraine after President Yanukovych rejected the association process with the European Union. The topic of grand corruption was also added. After weeks of protests, the parliament removed him from office. (similar change to our November 1989) In November 2016, Yanukovych admitted that he had written a letter to Putin with a request to send Russian troops to Ukraine. Then, in 2014, Russia forcibly occupied Crimea and Donbas, effectively starting the current war. (around 1900, 53% of Ukrainians and 28% of Russians lived in Donbass. More here: Donbas.

Putin got away with it because the sanctions were weak, they were not enforced, and the West still naively believed that good relations with Russia would be achieved through mutually beneficial trade. Putin evaluated it in such a way that he could afford to occupy Ukraine militarily, install a pro-Russian non-democratic government in Kyiv, as in Belarus, and tear off another territory. On February 24, 2022, he ordered the attack. He miscalculated because the Ukrainians began to defend themselves successfully, and the free West supported them militarily. The biggest war in Europe since the end of World War II began.

Destroyed lives and families

The greatest tragedy is the destroyed human lives. According to qualified estimates from September 2023, Russian military losses are approaching 300,000. This includes 120,000 dead and 170,000 to 180,000 wounded soldiers. Ukrainian losses are estimated at nearly 70,000 killed and 100,000 to 120,000 wounded. Since then, the death toll has risen. According to a January 2024 estimate by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), more than 10,000 Ukrainian civilians have been killed in the war, including 587 children. On the 2nd anniversary, President Zelenskyi said that Ukraine has 31,000 soldiers killed, and the with the fact that the actual number may be twice as high. Putin and his Verchuška caused the most immense slaughter of Slavs after Hitler.

For a long time, Russia has had many more abortions, murders, and suicides than the EU. Putin’s propagandist, political scientist Rostislav Išenko, on the state TV Russia Today about the Ukrainian victims of the war: “We count it dry. 100,000. 300,000, half a million. I don’t feel any sadness about it; quite the contrary. The more we kill, the closer the end of the war is.” Russland verstärk Angriffe auf Ukraine: Entrüstung nach Propaganda-Aussage  • Russia’s average offensive war losses in February 2024 were 983 people a day – Those sent to death by Putin to murder Ukrainians and steal their freedom and territory.

In two years, the Russians attacked medical facilities more than 1,500 times despite international agreements.   

Ukrainian Greek Catholic Archbishop Šefchuk says how Russian aggression destroys families. “The Russians kidnapped 20,000 children from Ukraine… We also have 35,000 missing soldiers.” He quotes a devastated woman: “Am I a widow? Should I pray for my husband as a living person or as a dead person?”… “Today, most families are divided because men are in the army and women with children have left the city or even the country.” There are 4.5 million refugees in Europe alone; others are displaced in Ukraine. “The worst months of my life” – children taken from Ukraine, Eduard Buraš, who is dedicated to helping Ukraine, describes in an interview. Children carry the war with them; they have empty eyes and are afraid of the screeching of trams.

Persecution of the Church

The Russians also destroyed more than 600 temples and church buildings and abolished religious freedom. (Statement of the Chairman of the IRFBA on two years of Russian aggression against Ukraine accompanied by abuse, killing of priests, and destruction of places of worship here: In the occupied territories, the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church was pushed underground, Senior Archbishop Shevchuk explained. “There are no more Catholic priests in this part of Ukraine. We received information that our people in Donetsk went to pray in the church every Sunday even without a priest, but the church was confiscated and the doors were closed. In the occupied territories around Zaporizhzhia, the Russian authorities issued a special decree banning the existence of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church and confiscating our property. That’s why people pray in their homes, and if they can, they participate in our services via the Internet.”

The ongoing imprisonment also reminds the danger faced by Catholics in occupied Ukraine of fathers Ivan Levický and Bohdan Heleta, who were arrested in November 2022. “Are they alive or dead? We have not received any news since their arrest. “They dragged Jaroslavovič out of the house barefoot, with a bag on his head. Later, they came and took his wife to identify him,”. I wrote about how a Slovak priest was kidnapped a year ago here. He died in the ruins of the church. A six-year-old girl and her grandfather were killed in the village of Veliki Burluk near Kupinask.

But some misguided Christians still proclaim Putin the savior of Christian culture and justify his aggression. 

Kremlin against Ukraine

The Russians occupied 42,000 km2 of Ukrainian territory until the invasion on February 24, 2022. Then, another 119,000 km2, which is 27% of Ukraine. In 2022, the Ukrainians regained 74,500 km2, leaving over 14% of the territory of Ukraine under Russian control. (Note – Hitler and the Hungarians took away 20% of Slovakia’s territory through the Vienna Arbitration) The Russians devastated an even larger territory. A joint report informs it of the Ukrainian government, the World Bank, and the United Nations. Housing, transport, trade, and industry are the most affected. (For comparison – according to the budget for 2024, revenues of the Slovak Republic should be €53.48 billion and expenses €61.32 billion.) The two-year war has so far cost Ukraine more than $19.6 billion in tourism revenue alone…

Under Stalin, Moscow caused a famine in Ukraine that killed 3-6 million people. For months, Moscow planned not only military operations but also how it would steal twelve thousand tons of grain worth a billion dollars a year. This did not work out for the Russians, but Ukrainian grain producers will lose 3.2 billion USD. The war caused food prices to rise worldwide, including in Slovakia.

It contained 300 tons of humanitarian aid, including generators. Shortly before, a transport with 33 pallets of assistance for 660 Ukrainian families arrived at the warehouse. (Caritas. pl)

The Russian government most harms Russians.

Little is said about the price the Russians are paying for the war. Since the end of World War II, no one has harmed the Russians as much as their government. In the material, social, cultural, and moral areas. (Facts here: Now, I will list only part of the material costs and losses from the ongoing war:

The average monthly salary in Russia (2023) is €712. (Slovakia €1,373; Austria, where the communists never ruled, €2,850.) Almost half of the people in Russia do not have enough wages to cover basic expenses. Also, 300,000 people died or were injured in the war, and also because There was a shortage of doctors. Two percent of doctors and health workers went abroad to avoid conscription. In addition, 3,000 medics were mobilized to provide care on the battlefield. In January 2024, the Russian media also published reports of desperate residents of Russian cities who were freezing in their apartments, where they were a few degrees above zero. In some places, there was even ice in the rooms. The reason was cracked water lines that had not been maintained for years when the funds intended for this were stolen corruptly.