Our Friday News Analysis | What the World Reads Now!

Russian President Vladimir Putin drives a construction truck across the road-and-rail bridge over the Kerch Strait linking mainland Russia to Crimea during its 15 May 2018 opening ceremony. On 17 July, the Ukrainian military attacked the bridge for the second time using a pair of submersible drones. / ALEXANDER NEMENOV/AFP via Getty Images.

Let’s look at recent events in the Ukraine war from the point of view of those in the American intelligence community who don’t feel they have the ear of President Joe Biden but should.

On 17 July, Ukraine attacked one of Russian President Vladimir’s proudest achievements for a second time: the 11.25-mile Kerch Bridge linking Crimea to Russia. The 3.7 billion dollar bridge, with separate spans for auto and train traffic, was opened for auto traffic in May of 2018 and for trucks five months later, with Putin driving the first one to make the crossing.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky made it clear before the Russian invasion early last year that he considered the bridge a legitimate military target. Ukraine initially attacked the bridge last October using a submersible drone, but it was fully repaired within seven months. The most recent attack, by a pair of submersible drones, killed a couple driving across when the explosion occurred and injured their child. Damage to one of the auto spans was severe.

The Biden administration’s role in both attacks was vital. “Of course, it was our technology,” one American official told me. “The drone was remotely guided and half submerged—like a torpedo,” I asked if there was any thought before the bridge attack about the possibility of retaliation. “What will Putin do? We don’t think that far,” the official said. “Our national strategy is that Zelensky can do whatever he wants. There’s no adult supervision.”

Putin responded to the second attack on the bridge by ending an agreement that enabled Ukrainian wheat and other vital food crops, stymied by the ongoing war, to be shipped from blocked ports on the Black Sea. (Before the war, Ukraine exported more grain than the European Union and nearly half of the world’s sunflower seeds.) And Russia began steadily intensifying missile and rocket attacks in Odessa, whose initial target list has expanded from port areas to inner city sites.

The official said there was much more than grain and sunflower seeds flowing into Europe from Odesa and other Black Sea ports: “Odesa’s exports included illegal stuff like drugs and the oil that Ukraine was getting from Russia.”

At this point, with the Ukraine counteroffensive against Russia thwarted, the official said, “Zelensky has no plan except to hang on. It’s as if he’s an orphan—a poor waif in his underwear—and we have no real idea what Zelensky and his crowd are thinking. Ukraine is the most corrupt and dumbest government outside of Nigeria. Biden’s support of Zelensky can only come from Zelensky’s knowledge of Biden, not just because he cared for Biden’s son.”

The official said some in the American intelligence community worry about Putin’s response to the recent Ukrainian drone attacks in central Moscow. “Will Kyiv be next?”

The official depicted the American position on the war in Ukraine as confounding and unrealistic. “The president and [Secretary of State] Tony Blinken keep on saying, ‘We are going to do what it takes for as long as it takes’ to win the war.” He added that the administration has been negotiating for months to purchase what may amount to as much as a ten-year supply of 155-mm artillery shells from the Pakistani army that could, ironically, extend the life of a losing war effort.

“More people are going to die in this war, and what for?” the official asked. “The American and Ukrainian military are no longer making any predictions” about future success in the current counteroffensive. “The Ukrainian army has not surpassed the first of three Russian defense lines. Every mine the Ukrainians dig up is replenished at night by the Russians.

“The reality,” the official said, “is that the balance of power in the war is settled. Putin has what he wants”: access to Crimea and the four Ukrainian oblasts—Donetsk, Kherson, Luhansk, and Zaporizhzhia—that were annexed by Russia last 30 September. “Ukraine does not have them and cannot get them back.” Meanwhile, if there is one, Putin’s end game in Odessa is unknown.

Despite all the unknowns, the official said, President Biden “should have told Zelensky that he was on his own regarding the counteroffensive. The balance of power”—against the out-gunned, out-trained, and out-manned Ukrainian forces—“was a settled issue.”

Last week at the Aspen Security Forum in Colorado, Secretary Blinken publicly dismissed any talk of ceasefire negotiations before the current counteroffensive and accused Russia, according to a New York Times report, of “weaponizing food supplies.” He accused Russia of “weaponizing” its vast natural gas supply before President Biden authorized the destruction of Russia’s two Nord Stream gas pipelines to Germany last fall.

On Sunday, during a televised interview with CNN’s Fareed Zakaria, Blinken turned recent history on its head, declaring that in terms of what Putin “sought to achieve” in the war with Ukraine, he had “already lost.” “The objective was to erase Ukraine from the map, eliminate its independence and sovereignty, and subsume it into Russia. That failed a long time ago. Now Ukraine is battling to regain more of the land Russia seized from it. It is tough. The Russians have put in place strong defenses. The Ukrainians are fighting for their land, for their future, for their country, for their freedom. That is the decisive element, and that will play out.” If negotiated, any future settlement with Russia will almost certainly include new leadership in Kyiv and acknowledge Russian control over the four annexed oblasts. Zelensky, if he survives, is known to own a house in Forte di Marmi, a beach town in Tuscany, which he purchased for $4.2 million in 2015, four years before he became president.

The noisy public split in late June between Yevgeny Prigozhin, the leader of the paramilitary Wagner Group, and Putin captured the hearts and minds of many American newspaper editors and reporters who viewed it as a serious challenge to Putin’s leadership. I have not learned whether there was a formal CIA assessment of the event. Still, serious intelligence experts on Russia concluded that it was much more than the undoing of a problematic leader who seemed to be at odds with Putin.

“Putin is a Russian fundamentalist, but he was aware that the Wagner Group was full of potential dissidents who did not consider him enough of a fundamentalist for them,” the official said. “They wanted him to take Ukraine and Western Europe and drive to the English Channel. Putin was not into it.”

“How would President Biden react if China had established a base in Tijuana, Mexico, and met there with all the left-leaning governments of South America? That’s how Putin would be expected to react to the meeting of all the NATO chiefs in Vilnius this month, close to the Russian border.”

The official added: “Don’t think it”—Putin’s exposure and entrapment of the failed Wagner Group counter-terrorists—“wasn’t planned. Not a chance.”

Russian history teems with such entrapments. Just ask Leon Trotsky.

POPE FRANCIS’S PEACE ENVOY COMES TO WASHINGTON

Can a progressive cardinal—a possible future Pope—help bring an end to the war in Ukraine?

Cardinal Matteo Maria Zuppi, a slim, unassuming man, trained as a parish priest and has worked with the poor living on Rome’s outskirts, often getting around by bicycle.
Photograph by Olesya Kurpyayeva / Getty

By Paul Elie
The New Yorker Magazine
25 July 2023

Last Tuesday, Henry Kissinger, who served as the US Secretary of State half a century ago, met with China’s defense minister in Beijing, and President Biden met with Pope Francis’s special envoy for Russia’s war on Ukraine, Cardinal Matteo Maria Zuppi in Washington. The first encounter drew wide attention in the American press, the second much less. “Not even a photo op,” Massimo Faggioli, an Italian theologian who teaches at Villanova University and who wrote a book on Biden’s Catholicism, remarked on Twitter after calling the meeting one that “means a lot for the Holy See…, not so much for the USA. ”

Biden’s encounter with the envoy, Cardinal Matteo Maria Zuppi, the Archbishop of Bologna, was held at 5 p.m. It followed a precisely calibrated series of speeches addressing the war in Ukraine at NATO’s summit meeting in Lithuania the week before, and a controversial meeting with Israel’s President, Isaac Herzog, at the White House earlier in the day. When announced just the day before, it appeared to be a handshake welcome—a small act of courtesy on Biden’s part. The Vatican had initiated the meeting, which was the third leg of a mission in which Zuppi has met with President Volodymyr Zelensky in Kyiv, and with Yuri Ushakov, a foreign-policy adviser to President Vladimir Putin, and with Patriarch Kirill, the Primate of the Russian Orthodox Church, in Moscow.

For Francis, then, it was of fundamental significance:
the mission is his best chance to help open a space for dialogue
pointed toward some sort of peace conference
or settlement when the war ends.

Optics aside, there is plenty to suggest that the meeting also meant a lot to Biden. The President took it himself, at the White House, rather than delegating it, and a report from the Vatican indicated that he spoke with Zuppi for more than an hour. So it may be that forgoing a photo session was a way to focus on the substance of the conversation. The White House’s readout indicated this was “the Vatican’s advocacy for the return of forcibly deported Ukrainian children.” But it also stated a more general theme: “the Holy See’s efforts providing humanitarian aid to address the widespread suffering caused by Russia’s continuing aggression in Ukraine.”

The phrase “widespread suffering” is broad enough to cover a range of issues: Russia’s recent withdrawal from a deal that allowed Ukraine to ship grain from its ports, thereby sustaining its economy, or Biden’s decision to send Ukraine U.S.-made cluster munitions (a form of weaponry condemned by the Vatican and more than a hundred nations); or just the notion that the most effective way for world leaders to remedy the suffering is to find a way to help end the war.

Biden was Vice-President when Pope Francis addressed a joint session of Congress in September 2015. As President, Biden had previously met Francis once, at the Vatican in October 2021; after that meeting, he called the Pope “the most significant warrior for peace I’ve ever met.” Russia invaded Ukraine four months later. Now, seventeen months into the war, the meeting with Zuppi suggests that even as Biden, the Commander-in-Chief stresses that the NATO military alliance will stand with Ukraine for “as long as it takes,” Biden, the statesman recognizes the prospect of peace negotiations, with Ukraine, Russia, the US, other nations, and the Vatican all taking part.

The Pope, too, is trying to balance leadership and statecraft, and Zuppi’s mission represents a new phase in his response to the war. In the weeks after the invasion, Francis refused to name Russia as the aggressor. Commentators said that he was acting in deference to papal precedent going back to the Second World War—when Pius XII did not name Germany as the aggressor (or castigate the Nazis for the Holocaust)—and to preserve an eventual role for the Vatican as something like a neutral mediator. But Francis was unable or unwilling to stick with restraint.

In March 2022, the Pope and two Vatican advisers in interchurch relations met via Zoom with Kirill—a Putin loyalist who has characterized the invasion as a holy war—and two Russian Orthodox officials. Recounting the meeting in an interview a few weeks later, Francis said, of Kirill, “For the first twenty minutes, he read from a piece of paper he was holding all the reasons that justify the Russian invasion. I listened to him and replied, ‘I don’t understand any of this.

“Brother, we are not state clerics.
We shouldn’t speak the language of politics but rather the language of Jesus …
A Patriarch can’t lower himself to become Putin’s altar boy.’ ”

In the same interview, however, he also considered the possibility that “the West’s attitudes” had “facilitated” the invasion through “barking at Russia’s gate” on the part of NATO, which in the past quarter century has welcomed as members countries from the former Soviet bloc.

Since then, Francis has become increasingly forthright. Last May, expounding on wars taking place in various nations, he noted that the war in Ukraine had drawn more attention than others because it is “closer to us,” and he added, “A few years ago, it occurred to me to say that we are living the Third World War piece by piece. For me, today, World War III has been declared. This is something that should give us pause for thought.”

In August, he finally described the war in Ukraine as “initiated by the Russian Federation” and condemned it as “morally unjust, unacceptable, barbaric, senseless, repugnant, and sacrilegious.” On the first anniversary of the invasion, he said,

“Let us remain close to the tormented Ukrainian people, who continue to suffer, and ask ourselves: Has everything possible been done to stop the war?”

In March, he said the war is driven by “imperial interests, not just of the Russian empire, but of empires from elsewhere.” After a trip to Budapest in April, when a reporter asked about the prospect of negotiations, he said, “I am willing to do whatever needs to be done.” He named Zuppi as his envoy three weeks later.

The Cardinal has a deep affinity with the Pope’s approach. A Roman, born in 1955, as a young man Zuppi took part in the Community of Sant’Egidio, a Rome-based Catholic NGO, founded in 1968 that now has a presence in seventy countries. It has drawn recognition for its annual gathering of leaders of the world religions (called the Prayer for Peace) and its conflict-mediation efforts in Mozambique and Burundi, and its leaders have come to serve as a kind of kitchen cabinet for Pope Francis on humanitarian issues, including immigration.

Zuppi, a lanky, unassuming man, trained as a parish priest and eventually became the pastor of the Basilica of Santa Maria in Trastevere—where the group holds a nightly prayer service—and worked with the poor living on Rome’s outskirts, often getting around by bicycle.

He had a crucial role in Sant’Egidio’s conflict-mediation efforts, which were long and complex. A 1992 accord for Mozambique was developed across eleven meetings over twenty-seven months, involving the government, the resistance group Renamo, the governments of neighboring Zimbabwe and South Africa, and the United Nations. A 2000 accord for Burundi, which had been racked by civil war between Tutsis and Hutus since 1993, was advanced by secret meetings in Sant’Egidio’s Rome headquarters in 1997 and ultimately involved nineteen parties to the conflict, among them six distinct Hutu resistance groups.

Zuppi speaks Portuguese and Spanish and has known Pope Francis since he was the Archbishop of Buenos Aires. In 2015, two years after Francis was elected Pope, he appointed Zuppi as the Archbishop of Bologna, a progressive university city. In 2019, he made him a cardinal. Last May, he chose him as the president of the Italian Bishops’ Conference, known as the Episcopal Conference of Italy. This series of appointments marked Zuppi as a member of Francis’s inner circle and a papabile—a possible future Pope.

Zuppi’s connection with Sant’Egidio has prompted George Weigel, who has a high view of the papacy and a low view of the current Pope, and whose many books include a two-volume biography of Pope John Paul II, to denigrate Francis’s peace effort in Ukraine. In a piece titled “A Misguided Papal Mission in Moscow,” published earlier this month in the Wall Street Journal, Weigel called Zuppi “a papal dream candidate of Catholic progressives” and described Sant’Egidio’s dialogue-focussed approach to peacemaking as “gelatinous” and unsuited to “a neocolonial war of aggression,” intimating that it is playing into the hands of Putin and his propagandists, notably Kirill.

Francis’s mission builds on a precedent set by John Paul, who, in 2003, sent envoys to both Baghdad (Cardinal Roger Etchegaray, who met with President Saddam Hussein) and Washington (Cardinal Pio Laghi, who met with the then President George W. Bush) in the hope of preventing a second Gulf War. Zuppi’s peacemaking experience was gained in multilateral conflicts involving the warring parties, other governments, and humanitarian and civil society groups. The structure of his current mission is taking a similar pattern, involving Kyiv, Moscow, Washington, Beijing—which is said to be his next stop—and Paris, in addition to religious leaders and the Vatican’s Secretariat of State. (This past fall, the French President, Emmanuel Macron, addressed a Sant’Egidio peace conference in Rome, where he said that, although it is up to Ukraine to decide when peace is an option, any eventual peace “will be built” with Russia, “who today is the enemy, around a table, and the international community will be there.”)

The Pope’s decision to ask his special envoy to meet a range of foreign leaders underscores that, though he recognizes Moscow as the aggressor, he sees the war in Ukraine as a grave escalation of a world war developing “piece by piece” in long-running conflicts around the world that have produced a “famine of peace.” President Biden’s decision to meet with Zuppi suggests that, on some level, he also sees the conflict that way—not speaking of peace but speaking with a peacemaker.

What is the Side of the Story that is Not Yet Decisive? Edited by Abraham A. van Kempen.

HELP BRING US TOGETHER

January 16, 2017
The Hague, The Netherlands

His Holiness Pope Francis
Apostolic Palace
00120 Vatican City
The Holy See

Open letter from Abraham A. van Kempen to His Holiness Pope Francis, The Pope

Dear Papa Roma, Your Holiness,

Much of the conflict … is about dispossession and displacement, a struggle to give or take or keep ancestral land. On whose side is God, the God of Abraham, the God of the Jews, the God of the Christians, and the God of Islam, the God of all humankind?

…

Can you help create safe and imaginative spaces for grappling with the hard questions of our times? Can you, will you help mediate to help bring the many voices of all sides into constructive conversations with each other, especially conversations among unlike-minded and perhaps even unlikely people?

God knows they have tried. Yet, often fruitless, though incessant, negotiations in … remain, optimistically stated, academic. If you were to invite those with divergent views to your table, each imposing upon you unique dietary demands, what would you serve them, figuratively speaking? Where would the conversations lead?

Clouds of darkness plagued humanity throughout the 20th Century: endless wars, conflicts, mass murder, and 'ethnic cleansing’ causing indescribable suffering among millions of victims. The 20th Century leaves us a legacy of lessons (to be) learned. Above all, the previous Century warns us what not to do. Wars beget more wars because war feeds hatred and devalues human dignity and human rights.

To paraphrase Saint Pope John Paul II: “Light outshines darkness. The light is the 'art of God,' manifested in His plan for Humanity: the plan of peace, love, truth, and justice. Humanity must change its ways to usher in God's Plan for Mankind.” (Audience in the Vatican with Pope John Paul II, 24 January 2001 ‘A Future More Worthy of the Human Person’)

Your Holiness, Papa Roma, can you, will you help guide us through the dark tunnels of the 21st Century, to help change our ways, to help usher God’s Plan for Mankind, to walk the path in the footsteps of Abraham, toward light?

With every good wish to Your Holiness, I am,

Sincerely Yours,


Abraham A. van Kempen
Editor

WHAT'S IN RUSSIA'S SECRET "SPIRITUAL SECURITY" DOCUMENT – A WESTERN PERSPECTIVE ON RUSSIA’S SOUL?

Presenter: Andrew West
Producer: Hong Jiang
Sound Engineers: Tegan Nicholls
ABC.net Australia
Broadcast 28 June 2023

Click here to listen to this radio podcast (15 minutes) 

What's in Russia's secret "spiritual security" document?

Ever since Vladimir Putin launched his war on Ukraine, he's pushed the idea that Russia faces a military threat from NATO, trying to expand to Russia's border. But there's another motive at play — buried deep inside key Russian security documents. It's the doctrine of so-called "spiritual security," arguing that Russia needs to defend not just territory but moral values from the West.

Kristina Stoeckl is a professor at the Free University in Rome and co-author of the book Moralist International Russia in the Global Culture Wars. She writes about this unique security doctrine in the current edition of The Review of Faith & International Affairs.

Abstract

               The concept of spiritual security has been present in the official discourse of the Kremlin and the Russian Orthodox Church since 2000. The idea emerged roughly around the same time when the European Union (OSCE) and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) started to use the formula "Freedom of Religion or Belief" (FoRB) as part of their comprehensive security strategy. In the context of this unique symposium in The Review of Faith & International Affairs dedicated to the OSCE Policy Guidance "Freedom of Religion or Belief and Security" (see Fattori Citation2022), this article offers a comparison of the comprehensive security approach in that document and rival Russian understandings of national and human security. After a brief outline of freedom of religion or belief as part of a European understanding of comprehensive security, I turn to Russian legal documents—Russia's National Security Strategy, the Constitution of the Russian Federation amended in 2020, and the Declaration on Values of the Union of Russia and Belarus—which use the term "spiritual-moral values" in the context of "national security." The term "spiritual security" (духовная безопасностъ) is not used in the official legal documents. However, the term is used in commentary about these documents, in speeches by Russian politicians and clerics, and in academic papers, which I analyze in the second part of this article.

It is essential to make this distinction between legal documents and public discourse: "Spiritual Security" is not Russian legal terminology, but the concept describes a Russian legal and political principle that relates the security and stability of the Russian state and society to the upholding of specific religious, cultural, and moral values. The doctrine implies that these values are threatened from the outside (the West, religious groups, free internet, liberalism, foreign NGOs, etc.) and that the Russian state and its allies ("the Russian World") are under siege. In the third part of the article, I point out the paradoxes of the spiritual-moral values discourse and how the Russian war on Ukraine has clarified the stakes of Russia's spiritual security doctrine: it leads to repression on the inside and rivalry with the outside world.

Read more: Russia’s Spiritual Security Doctrine as a Challenge to European Comprehensive Security Approaches

THE RUSSIAN SOUL WILL PREVAIL, SAYS PROFESSOR DUGIN

In an Interview, Professor Alexandr Dugin portends that the Russian soul will usher in a multipolar world.

Watch the VIDEO HERE (24 minutes, 23 seconds)

               Russian philosopher, Alexandre Dugin, suggests that the West has lost its moral compass.

               The West is no longer the sole King on the Hill.

               The balance of power must be shared between the West, China, India, Africa, the Muslim World, South America, and the Russian Federation. 

               Multipolarity will help bring the world closer together.

               Russia rejects sole Western hegemony.

               Power corrupts.

               Absolute power corrupts absolutely.

US TACITLY ENDORSING UKRAINE'S ANTI-CHURCH CRACKDOWN – MOSCOW

Organizations that are supposed to protect religious freedoms are ignoring Kyiv's criminality, a new report has found

RT HomeRussia & FSU
26 July 2023

FILE PHOTO: US President Joe Biden (L) and Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky at a cathedral in Kyiv © AP Photo/Evan Vucci

International organizations have failed to appropriately react to Kyiv's persecution of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (UOC), while the US, the self-proclaimed global champion of religious freedoms, is hushing up the crimes and even tacitly approves of them, the Russian Foreign Ministry has claimed.

On Tuesday, the Russian diplomatic service released a report on the Ukrainian state's mistreatment of the UOC, which has historical ties with the Russian Orthodox Church.

The section detailing international reactions, or lack thereof, blasted Washington, a vital supporter of the Ukrainian government, for "hushing up information about Kyiv's crimes." The US government purports to champion religious freedoms and regularly produces reports on alleged violations in nations worldwide.

"Amid the persecutions of Orthodox believers in Ukraine, however, [US officials] never criticized the destructive church policy of Zelensky. By their inaction, they signal to their underlings that they approve of their lawless actions," the document concluded.

The 30-page report details how Kyiv has been tightening the screws on the UOC through discriminatory legislation, targeted law enforcement action, covert support for forced conversions of parishes, and condoning hate speech against the clergy and faithful, among other things.

The Ukrainian government supports the rival Orthodox Church of Ukraine (OCU), a dissident organization that existed in 2018 under former President Pyotr Poroshenko. He made the move a crucial part of his reelection campaign but failed at the ballot box the following year.

His successor, Vladimir Zelensky, ramped up the pressure campaign amid the armed conflict with Russia. A signature episode mentioned in the report was the March decision to oust UOC clerics from the Kyiv Pechersk Lavra, one of Ukraine's most treasured Orthodox monasteries. Culture Minister Aleksandr Tkachenko, whose department is responsible for the site, said that the monks could stay if they agreed to defect to the OCU.

The report noted that the UN had repeatedly confirmed Kyiv's discriminatory policies. Nevertheless, Russian calls to the international body and leading human rights organizations to intervene were futile, it said.

The problem, "unfortunately, is still not considered a priority by the UN and other relevant organizations," according to the ministry. In response to requests from Moscow, they "usually give non-committal answers that say they are monitoring the situation" but provide no "adequate reaction."

ZELENSKY MOVES TO CANCEL TRADITIONAL CHRISTMAS

The Ukrainian president has introduced a bill designed to "reject the Russian heritage" of celebrating the birth of Christ in January

RT HomeRussia & FSU
28 June 2023

© Konstantin Mikhalchevsky; RIA Novosti

Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky has proposed moving Christmas celebrations in the country to December 25 instead of January 7 – the date traditionally marked by the canonical Orthodox church – according to a bill published on the national parliament's website.

Currently, both dates are considered official holidays in Ukraine. However, Zelensky's new bill, which has to be approved by the Ukrainian parliament, the Verkhovna Rada, seeks to amend Ukraine's labor code and limit the Christmas holiday to December 25.

An explanatory note attached to the bill claimed that the people of Ukraine were "imposed on by Russian ideology in almost all spheres of life," including observing the Julian calendar.

Many Orthodox churches, including the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (UOC) and the Russian Orthodox Church (ROC), still use the Julian calendar to determine holy days. Under the calendar, Christmas falls on January 7. Catholic, Protestant and several Orthodox churches use the Gregorian or New Julian calendars, which differ by 13 days and celebrate the birth of Christ on 25 December.

"The purpose of the draft law is to abandon the Russian heritage of imposing the celebration of Christmas on January 7," the note stated. It claimed that adopting the bill would allow the country to "reject Russian traditions and fortify national unity in Ukraine."

The move comes amid a crackdown by Kyiv on the canonical UOC and attempts to replace it with the largely unrecognized Orthodox Church of Ukraine (OCU). The OCU announced in May that it would break away from the canonical Orthodox calendar and align itself more closely with Western Catholic and Protestant traditions by adopting the New Julian calendar and celebrating Christmas on 25 December.

Russia, which has repeatedly accused Kyiv of persecuting Orthodox Christians in Ukraine, has condemned Zelensky's new bill and described it as a further attempt to marginalize followers of the UOC.

"It is obvious that a conflict is being provoked between those believers who want to live according to the old calendar and the authorities that want to deprive them of this," a source at the Russian Orthodox Church told the media.

SCOTT RITTER JOINS ON UKRAINE'S AND RUSSIA'S FUTURE | Geopolitics Live | CRIMEA

Streamed live on 17 July 2023

Click Here to Watch the Video (2 hours, 9 minutes, 40 seconds)

_________________________

EDITOR’S NOTE |

Every Second in This 2 Hour, 9 Minute, 40 Second Interaction
Is Worth Its Weight in Gold 1,000-Fold.

If I could, I’d give you $1 million for every minute you listen to Scott Ritter’s revelations and clarification of what is going on, not just in Ukraine but also what happened in the former Yugoslavia. What’s more, he champions my conviction that the people of Taiwan do not want to become cannon fodders and human shields in a war between the EU-US/NATO Axis and the People’s Republic of China. The Taiwanese cannot be bought and sold like those in Kyiv, presently committing the deaths of 340,000+ Ukrainian troops and 25,000 Ukrainian civilians, notwithstanding the 700,000 Ukrainian wounded.

So, gold and silver have I none, to quote a verse in the Sacred Text, but I give you more. Everything I’ve got – my blood, sweat, and tears – to help you expand your horizons.

_________________________

In this captivating discussion, our attention will be firmly fixed on the ongoing war between Ukraine and Russia. Our esteemed guest, Scott Ritter, a distinguished geopolitical expert with extensive military background and experience as a weapons inspector, will take center stage as he shares his invaluable insights on the conflict and offers advice on bringing about its resolution.

As the war intensifies, the live stream aims to provide viewers with a comprehensive understanding of the complexities involved.

Scott Ritter's deep understanding of the geopolitical landscape and his firsthand experience as a weapons inspector will bring a unique perspective to the conversation, helping shed light on the nuances and challenges surrounding the war in Ukraine.

The stream will delve into the highly-debated question of whether Ukraine should surrender. Alex and Scott Ritter will deeply analyze the geopolitical, humanitarian, and strategic factors, evaluating potential outcomes and the implications of various courses of action.

In addition to the war in Ukraine and Russia, the live stream will explore China's involvement in global peace. Recognizing the significance of China's role on the international stage, the conversation will touch upon China's stance and actions concerning global peacekeeping efforts.

Viewers can anticipate a thought-provoking discussion beyond the headlines, providing a nuanced understanding of the war in Ukraine, Russia's involvement, and the potential paths toward peace.

Alex's expertise as a host, combined with Scott Ritter's unparalleled insights, guarantees an engaging and informative experience for all. Join us for this enlightening live stream as Alex and Scott Ritter share their perspectives, analyze the war in Ukraine, discuss the prospect of the Ukrainian surrender, and examine China's impact on world peace.

Be part of the conversation contributing to a deeper understanding of these complex global issues.

_________________________

EDITORIAL | Good Luck!

I don’t know His Holiness, Pope Francis. Never have I had the opportunity to discuss with him matters of substance. But, in all respect to His Holiness, I think the Pope blew it (unless he was misquoted):

               “Brother, we are not state clerics. We shouldn’t speak the language of politics but rather the language of Jesus …

               A Patriarch can’t lower himself to become Putin’s altar boy.’ ”

His Holiness Pope Francis could not bear to listen to His Holiness Patriarch Kirill’s litany of what’s wrong with the West (the EU-US/NATO Axis) and why Russia was justified to violate international law to execute its preemptive strike against the EU-US/NATO Axis, – an undeclared war by proxy – under the pretext of perpetrating a Special Military Operation (SMO) against the poorest of the poor in Europe, the not-so-sovereign nation of Ukraine.

I trust His Holiness Patriarch Kirill is holy enough to discharge the insult, “A Patriarch can’t lower himself to become Putin’s altar boy,” as an inopportune though tactless and regrettable statement uttered under duress.

His Holiness Pope Francis could send his emissary, Cardinal Matteo Maria Zuppi, to rally all the clowns and stooges, the so-called world leaders in Beijing, Berlin, Paris, Washington, DC, Moscow, Kyiv, and The Hague, to smoke the peace pipe. But how could Cardinal Zuppi reason and negotiate with those who have ignited an insignificant spark into an almost uncontrollable wildfire unless the Pope and the Patriarch decide to listen to all sides? Forgiving and forgetting are the order of the day.

You never know. Maybe this incident might help shrink the schism between Rome and Moscow. One thing has become self-evident. We can’t go back to the past.

So, what’s in store for all of us on Planet Earth?

1. Let’s live each day without the fear of a nuclear holocaust.
2. We must reconcile the racial hatred among the ‘White’ Ukrainians (descendants of Aryan and Viking stock) who treat the ‘Black’ Ukrainians (descendants of Slavic Russians) as trash.
3. Ukraine must heal itself from ultra-radical nationalism.
4. We must honor, respect, and dignify the referendum in the Donbas, affirming that 80 percent of its population wants to be an integral part of Mother Russia.
5. We must encourage multilateral trade and structural integrity between the Russian Federation, the European Union, and the rest of the world, with the sovereign nation of Ukraine as the primary conduit between East and West.
6. The EU-US/NATO Axis should cease hindering Russian-Ukrainian cooperation.
7. The regime in Kyiv must change according to the will of the 80 percent of Ukrainians who now have no voice.
8. Hopefully, Zelensky and his wife won’t be hung like Mussolini and his mistress.

_________________________

Related Articles Recently Posted on www.buildingthebridgefoundation.com:

Our Friday News Analysis | 'What the World Reads Now!' 21 July 2023.

Our Wednesday News Analysis | 'Jenin and more: Jews across the world say Not In Our Name!,' 26 July 2023.

The Evangelical Pope | 'Expand Your Horizons,' 24 July 2023.

_________________________

The views expressed are solely those of the author and may or may not reflect those of the Building the Bridge Foundation, The Hague.