Putin and the Pope, war and peace.

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. Especially 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 wrote 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: Hitler and Stalin tormentedDonbascoulhad   ) )

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 like in Belarus, and tear off another territory. On February 24, 2022, he ordered the attack. He miscalculated, because the Ukrainians began to successfully defend themselves, and the free West also began to support 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 media identified more than 45,000 Russian soldiers killed in Ukraine, with the fact that the actual number may be twice as high. Putin and his Verchuška caused the biggest 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 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WeaiMDcUNaU&t=10s    •  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.

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 testify: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CeJyXRtmbh0

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 2 years of Russian aggression against Ukraine accompanied by abuse, killing of priests and destruction of places of worship here: https://www.state.gov/irfba-chairs-statement-on-the-somber-anniversary-of-two -years-since-the-Russian-aggression-against-ukraine-accompanied-by-severe-violations-and-abuses-killing-of-priests-and-destruction-of-p/  )

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 danger faced by Catholics in occupied Ukraine is also reminded by the ongoing imprisonment 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.” ( https://acnslovensko.sk/novinky/ukrajinsky-arcibiskup-svjatoslav-sevcuk-vojna-zasiahla-srdce-nasej-spolocnosti-rodinu ) …     Ukrainian Greek Catholic priest Stepan Podolčak was killed in the Russian-occupied village of Kalančak in the Kherson region.   “They dragged Jaroslavovič out of the house barefoot, with a bag on his head. Later they came and took his wife to identify him as well,”. (hromadske.ua). I wrote about how a Slovak priest was kidnapped a year ago here: Russian bombing of the Kharkiv region killed four people, including a priest. 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.

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 a total of 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 so  almost 500 billion euros are needed to restore Ukraine. It is informed by a joint report 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. Now, Russia was planning in advance how, after the invasion of Ukraine, it would steal Ukrainian grain on a large scale. 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 have a loss of 3.2 billion USD.

As a result of Russian attacks on Lviv, Ukraine, a Catholic charity warehouse burned down in September 2023.   It contained 300 tons of humanitarian aid, including generators. Shortly before, a transport with 33 pallets of aid 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 own government. In the material, social, cultural, and moral areas.  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.

The Russian labor market lacked almost 5 million people a year. Also because 300,000 people died or were injured in the war, and also because 4 million Russians left Russia in the first three months of 2022 there are about 600,000 Russian soldiers in the fighting zone in Ukraine. Puten claimsGood video here: Eiseskälte in Russland: Verzweifelte Russen appellieren an Wladimir Putin. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EfMpTg3ElSE  …..  We live like in besieged Leningrad, the Russians claim. They have been without heating for several days 

According to experts, repairing the entire network of public services would cost roughly three trillion rubles. For comparison, last year the Kremlin spent over 13 trillion rubles on war, which is 42% of all federal budget expenditures. Fixing Russia’s entire public service system would cost roughly a quarter of a year’s worth of military spending. Communist billionaire Putin, who built himself a luxury residence for a billion dollars, prefers to spend it on murdering Ukrainians.

The poor in Russia and the world.

10 years after “liberation”, up to 80% of families in Crimea have difficulty buying even the most basic food. (= about 159,000 people) “Pensioners simply cannot make ends meet,…they sell their flimsy possessions on the market, rummage through garbage, ask their children and grandchildren for help,” describes Basilian Makarij Leniv. For 3,500 families per year, this is approximately the price of one of the more than 3,000 tanks that the Russians lost in Ukraine.

Russia spent approximately 560 million euros only on   airstrikes on January 2, 2024. That is the annual income of 65,000 Russians, intended for killing and destroying Ukraine. On other days it is “only” a tenth or a third of this amount. In November 2023 – 374 Iranian kamikaze drones, in September 500, in October and July around 250. The Shahed drone costs about 50 thousand dollars. Plus artillery shelling and other missiles, including several times more expensive.

Recently, the Russians lost two special A-50 aircraft, each worth 330 million USD. (For comparison – ACN finances the construction and year-round operation of a canteen for 17,000 euros, providing 6 meals a week for 100 elderly people in the suburbs of Aleppo in Syria.

Causes – the Pope and the facts.

Pope Francis mentioned several causes of the war. When he said that one of the reasons might be “NATO barking at the gates of Russia”, Russian propaganda and its supporters spread it as proof that “even the Pope said that the cause of the war is NATO policy.” The Russians, like Stalin and Brezhnev, claim that they started the war because the West threatened them. Even now, it is equally deceptive propaganda, because the West bought everything it needed from Russia, which is much more effective than acquiring it through war. This is also proven by the fact that the USA and NATO have significantly reduced their spending on armaments since the end of the Cold War. They started increasing them only after the beginning of the Russian invasion.

“No one threatens us, no one attacks us,” reads the appeal, which was signed by more than 2,000 Russian scientists, artists and human rights activists at the beginning of February 2022. They asked the Kremlin to avoid an “immoral, irresponsible and criminal” war against Ukraine.   Russian intellectuals call on the Kremlin to avoid war against Ukraine.   Russian General Leonid Ivashov spoke out against Russia’s war with Ukraine and accused President Putin of trying to provoke this war to stay in power. In addition, the cause is Russian national imperialism , which is proclaimed by Putin and his entourage and ideologues. This also includes Putin’s mourning for the collapse of the Soviet Union, which was ruled by the Kremlin as a totalitarian.

There is no treaty where the West undertakes not to expand NATO, but there is a treaty where Russia guarantees the freedom, territorial integrity, and independence of Ukraine. (Budapest Memorandum) Post-communist and post-Soviet states applied for NATO membership on the basis of bad experiences with communist Russia, and Putin has now proved that their fears were justified.

However, the Pope has been calling almost every week for two years to support Ukraine, which is suffering from brutal, fratricidal, and sacrilegious aggression. In his speeches dedicated to this war, he cited John XXIII’s encyclical Pacem in Terris several times . from the time of the Cold War, which says that the main cause of wars, enormous suffering, and a lot of refugees are governments that take away the freedom of their own citizens and other nations. Francis identified the “despotic and imperialist visions” of the aggressor as the cause.

In his New Year’s address to diplomats accredited to the Holy See, Pope Francis   said, among other things: “Unfortunately, after almost two years of a large-scale war waged by the Russian Federation against Ukraine, the much-desired peace has still not been able to take root in minds and hearts, despite the large number of victims and enormous destruction.” We need to “end the current tragedy through negotiations by international law.” (= including internationally recognized borders) I did not see a single word about this in the Slovak Christian-conservative media either. In Russia, for such words, he would end up in prison or fall out of the window.

Peace according to Putin’s Russia

Deluded pro-Russian peacemakers repeat that the Pope is also calling for peace, but they keep silent and that Francis is mostly asking for a “just peace”. Also the fact that the Church has long taught that true peace comes from justice. Also what Putin says about peace, he and his colleagues have said more than once that, there will be peace in Ukraine when Russia achieves its goals. Putin named those goals two years ago: to eliminate everyone who considers himself Ukrainian, to cut off from Ukraine the territory he is interested in, and to install a government obedient to the Kremlin in Kiev.

Weapons for Ukraine.

Since the beginning of his pontificate, Pope Francis has criticized armaments and says that conflicts must be resolved through negotiation. When he repeated it after the first months of the Russian invasion, several “peacemakers” began to use it as an argument against supplying arms to Ukraine. However, they never addressed the challenge to the Russians, who started the war. However, the Pope praised the Ukrainians more than once for heroically defending their homeland and freedom. Both František and his close associates have said more than once that Ukraine must defend itself, and for that it also needs weapons. The use of weapons is morally permissible in defense.

The Munich Dictator, when Britain and France sacrificed Czechoslovakia to Hitler in the naive belief that this would save the peace, showed how such a policy would turn out. The war came, there were more victims, and it ended only with the military defeat of Nazi Germany. In December 1943, Stalin also said that the Soviets would not have won without the enormous military and material aid of the USA and Great Britain. Among other things, they delivered: 21,478 aircraft, 12,041 tanks, 9,600 guns, 431,236 trucks, 13,000 jeeps, 1,117,000,000 ammunition, 1,860 locomotives, 2,670,000 t of gasoline, 212,000 t of aluminum . Almost 4.5 million tons of high-calorie foods from the USA alone, another from Britain.

For similar reasons, the democratic West supports Ukraine today. The US has approved more than $110 billion for Ukraine since the start of the Russian invasion in February 2022. The EU and its member states provided Ukraine with more than EUR 82 billion in those 2 years, of which EUR 27 billion was in the form of military support.  Today, other weapons are also effective, but it is still only a fraction of what the Soviets received for World War II. If Ukraine had received some weapons more and earlier, today the Russians could have been pushed out of 90% of the Ukrainian territory, there could be fewer dead, and peace could be negotiated.

Putin’s ministers.

Patriarch Kirill was also criticized by Orthodox representatives of several countries for his support of Putin’s war. Pope Francis told him that he shouldn’t be Putin’s minister. This is done by everyone who justifies Russian aggression, relativizes its guilt, and spreads Russian propaganda. Anyone who refuses to provide arms to Ukraine in defense of its freedom is effectively helping Putin achieve his goals. It gets worse the more power and influence he has. If a politician does this in the center of the EU and at home, and at the same time agrees to the sale of weapons, he is a reckless Pharisee without morals and a sense of justice. He is the head of the Slovak government by the will of the people. And Slovakia is one of the two countries in Europe that are the worst in this regard.