Tuesday, March 18, 2014

Why does Russia want the West to perceive the Crimean referendum as fraudulent?

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"Those who cast the votes decide nothing.
Those who count the votes decide everything."

- Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin





Yesterday the results were announced from the Crimean referendum for secession from Ukraine and annexation by Russia. Reportedly, an astounding 83% of the electorate voted and a whopping 96.7% voted in favor of leaving the Ukraine for Russia.

To the surprise of absolutely no one, yesterday’s Crimean referendum on secession from Crimea and joining Russia resulted in a “yes” vote. What is, perhaps, somewhat striking is that the official results state that an incredible 96.7% of the voters voted “yes.” A 96.7% is almost never seen on anything at all controversial outside of places like North Korea – or, of course, the old Soviet Union, which Russian President Vladimir Putin served as a high-ranking KGB officer.

It is highly improbable that 96.7% would have voted yes in a genuinely free vote, since the Crimean population includes large Ukrainian and Crimean Tatar minorities that are overwhelmingly opposed to a return to Russian rule. Crimean officials are also reporting a high 83% turnout. If that figure is correct, it makes it unlikely that the 96.7% result is explicable by selective turnout. If, on the other hand, officials are lying about the turnout, they could be engaging deception about the vote margin as well. [Washington Post, 3/17/14]

What's really profound if that in Simferopol, 474,137 votes were cast when public census data taken late last year put the voting-age population in the Crimean capitol city at 385,462. That's a 123% turnout!

Even in a violent, chaotic, oppressive atmosphere, rigging elections takes a certain finesse. So some corrupt official or other must be kicking himself to see that in Sevastopol, Ukraine, 123 percent of the population just “voted” on whether Crimea should join the Russian Federation.

The referendum, widely condemned as illegal, enjoyed a turnout of more than 80 percent, according to Mykhaylo Malyshev, chair of the committee overseeing the process. He announced last night that 1,250,426 people had voted on whether to merge with Russia or revert to a semi-autonomous status outlined in a 1992 constitution, though that figure did not account for Sevastopol’s electorate. Including that city, he said, 1,724,563 people had voted—and, in a landslide result, about 97 percent wanted to break from Ukraine.

It wasn’t long, though, before a blogger known as teh-nomad poked some holes in that math with a skeptical LiveJournal post. Given that 474,137 people from Sevastopol were meant to have cast ballots, he found it more than a little suspicious that, at the end of last year, public census data put the voting-age population at 385,462. Where did the extra 88,675 votes come from? “Infants, schoolchildren, and, I suspect, the dead,” teh-nomad wrote. [The Daily Dot, 3/17/14]

It's evident the Crimean referendum was fraudulent, but the real question is, why is this so obvious? It's not like Russia's secret services aren't skilled at staging sham democratic elections. They carry them out on a regular basis in their own country after all, but at least there they keep the numbers relatively believable. In the case of the Crimean referendum, the declared results from the highly controversial vote are geared to be seen in the West as a farce.

Why so?

If Moscow wanted to eventually work out a compromise with the West for taking back Crimea from the Ukraine (Soviet Premier Khrushchev gifted the peninsula to Ukraine in 1954), then you'd think the Kremlin would have wanted the elections to appear legitimate.

Yet, the referendum results are a spectacular fraud that inflames international tensions over Russia's annexation of Ukraine's Crimea.

I dare say then that Russia is intentionally stoking a fire with America and the Western powers, and this likely has everything to do with the Kremlin's underlying plan to ultimately wage and "win" (the term is used lightly here) a nuclear third world war.


[Use "CC" for English translation]

Sunday, March 16, 2014

Russia's 'casus belli' for war on Ukraine: Blowing up gas pipelines?

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Yesterday's "invasion" of Ukraine beyond Crimea was a false alarm.

Russia is claiming that "Crimean self-defence personnel" carried out a limited incursion in Kherson, just outside of Crimea, to prevent "an act of sabotage on a gas pipeline":

Crimean self-defence units prevented an act of sabotage on a gas pipeline on Saturday, March 15. Prime Minister Sergei Aksyonov said the saboteurs had identified themselves as Ukrainian Border Guard Service officials.

“Crimean self-defence personnel prevented an attempt to block the gas pipeline to Crimea at the Arbatsky Spit. To prevent such attempts [in the future], the gas distribution station was put under protection. The persons who tried to damage the equipment – up to 40 people, according to preliminary information – and who identified themselves as Ukrainian Border Guard Service officials left the station in a hurry,” Aksyonov said.

He asked Russian Black Sea Fleet Commander Alexander Vitko to take the gas transportation system in this area under protection “in order to ensure energy security of the Autonomous Republic of Crimea and uninterrupted operation of crucial facilities.”

This whole notion of Ukrainians blowing up gas pipelines may be what Moscow is planning to use for a 'casus belli', i.e., a cause for a full-scale invasion of Ukraine beyond Crimea. The Ukrainian "Right Sector", which looks to be some sort of controlled opposition the Kremlin is using, is threatening to blow-up oil pipelines carrying Russian gas to Europe:

The head of the Ukrainian nationalist movement Dmitry Yarosh has threatened to explode the gas pipeline through which the Russian gas is supplied to Europe, aiming to deprive it of its financing source.

Yarosh voiced his threats as part of his "address to the Ukrainian government and his compatriots" in which he is accusing Moscow of having plans to seize Ukraine . The text of his address was cited by the UNN news agency.

"We are well aware of the fact that Russia is earning money by transporting its oil and gas to the West through our pipe. Therefore, we'll destroy this pipe in order to deprive Russia of its financing source."





Of course, it makes no sense for Ukrainians to sabotage the gas pipelines traversing their nation since:

1. More than half of their own gas supply comes from Russia.

2. Europeans would be upset with the Ukraine for disrupting their gas supplies.

Nevertheless, this is the nonsensical tale that Russia appears ready to tell, and my guess it's because Russia wants a pretext for invading the rest of Ukraine since:

The Soviets never start a war. By definition, the United States or, more generally speaking, "imperialism is the source of all antagonistic conflicts of the present day world, the source of war danger." [General Major A.S. Milovidov, quoted in Soviet Strategy For Nuclear War, p.98]

Saturday, March 15, 2014

Reports: Russia now invading southern Ukraine (beyond Crimea)

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3/16 UPDATE: Russia's 'casus belli' for war on Ukraine: Blowing up gas pipelines?

Російський виправданням для війни з Україною: саботувати газопроводів?


Best coverage I've found thus far is here (Alexander Yanov related site!):

http://www.interpretermag.com/ukraine-liveblog-day-26-has-the-war-already-started

More here:

http://www.theguardian.com/world/ukraine



Ukrainian report: http://dpsu.gov.ua/ua/about/news/news_3579.htm

На Арабатській стрілці висадився російський десант
15 Березня 2014

Прес-служба Державної прикордонної служби України повідомляє, що 15 березня близько 13 години прикордонний наряд, що виконував завдання з контролю режиму на адміністративному кордоні Херсонської області та АР Крим в районі населеного пункту Стрілкове спостерігав висадку з 4 вертольотів 60 військовослужбовців Російської Федерації. Прикордонники спільно з військовослужбовцями ЗС України (близько 20 осіб) змушені були відійти до перехрестя, що веде у напрямку Генічеська та зайняти оборону. Російські війська, на допомогу яким підійшло 3 БТР, розпочали інженерне облаштування позиції. Близько 15.30 у цьому ж районі з 6 вертольотів висадилися ще 60 військовослужбовців РФ. Крім цьому відомо про колону БТРів, що рухається в район села Стрілкове вздовж Арабатської стрілки з населенного пункту Камянське.

Водночас в ході переговорів командування Бердянського прикордонного загону з військовослужбовцями РФ встановлено, що метою їх висадки є, нібито, «охорона від можливих терактів» газонасосної станції «Чорноморнафтогазу», що розташована у цьому районі. Наразі силове протистояння відсутнє. Деталі уточнюються.



Statement from the Ukraine foreign office on the Russian incursion:

Statement of the MFA of Ukraine with respect to assault landing of the Russian Armed Forces in the Kherson region on March 15

Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine expresses its strong and categorical protest against the landing on March 15, 2014 near the village Strilkove, Kherson region of troops of the Russian Federation Armed Forces in a number of 80 military personnel, and seizure of the village Strilkove with the support of 4 helicopter gunships and 3 armored combat machines.

Ukraine Foreign Ministry declares the military invasion by Russia and demands the Russian side immediately withdraw its military forces from the territory of Ukraine.

Ukraine reserves the right to use all necessary measures to stop the military invasion by Russia.


Meanwhile CNN is busy covering the missing Malaysian airliner. That bubble is about to burst IMHO...

Saturday, March 08, 2014

WAR ALERT! - Armed forces massing for Ukraine-Russia conflict?

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YouTube videos have been uploaded in recent days and hours showing a massive buildup of military forces throughout the Ukraine, Crimea and Russia indicating the possibility of an imminent major war.

Here's what I've found thus far:

Massive Russian military convoy passing through Novorossiysk Russia:



Cell phone footage of a massive column of Russian forces spotted on the side of a highway in Novorossiysk Russia on March 7th - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8hIr2L5l2tM

On 8 March at 14:40 on the Feodosia highway (to Bilohirsk) in Simferopol more than 50 Russian military vehicles were spotted - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=023YV8Ets28

Multiple rocket launchers seen on the side of the road in Sumy on 3/6 - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eu4Z2Km64U8

95th Airmobile Brigade of Ukraine armed forces leaving their base in Zhytomyr - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oDKT6ah9_Q4

26th Artillery Brigade Self-propelled artillery moving through Berdychiv - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=daEfGbgEHTA

Column of marines moving out from a base in Lviv - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rRpw9S9vZLA

55th Artillery Brigade Heavy artillery moving through Zaporizhia - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mRvdE3yxJr8

20 T-64 tanks on trains in Bila Tserkva (1st Mechanized Battalion of the 72nd Brigade) - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vEFMEaXulcI


Likewise, videos showing Russian readiness for a war with Ukraine have been hitting YouTube:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zGejolytsFI

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FC1kpGyBFQc

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vkA5H-AW0eg

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9ewljq0EL2U

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2x5uG_q7Fh0

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2AhiMKwnj4Y

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=unggiwJ29WI


What do these massive military deployments in and around Ukraine mean?

There's a very dangerous possibility with the Ukraine crisis. Keep in mind that not even a month ago Ukraine was under the executive leadership of Russian puppet Viktor Yanukovich. I believe the Ukrainian military command and control structure, which has not changed much, remains effectively under the control of Moscow regardless of who's now "president" in Kiev. Indeed, should we even trust the new political leaders in Kiev for that matter? Yet, all of the sudden Ukraine's military is perceived to be directed by "Western" forces! This creates a possibility for Moscow to wage a "managed war"....one in which Russia is seemingly battling against "the West" over vital national interests.

Is it possible that Kiev is going to order military action to take Crimea back from Russia? Remarkably, there's little discussion of this possibility in the press. Yet, comments from the "new leadership" in Kiev suggests this could be the plan:






While conceding that his nation can't come close to the military power of Russia, the interim prime minister of Ukraine said Thursday that "we are ready to protect our country" if Russia does not stop its "military aggression" in Crimea.

Arseniy Yatsenyuk told reporters in Brussels, Belgium, that the presence of Russian forces in that autonomous region of his nation "is unacceptable in the 21st century."

In a news conference about the situation in Ukraine, President Obama said Thursday that the world is "well beyond the days when borders can be withdrawn over the heads of democratic leaders."

The Ukrainian military, Yatsenyuk said, has refrained from taking action so far because it does not wish to play into a "scenario designated by Russia." But he added that Ukraine has "the spirit" to defend itself if necessary.

Yatsenyuk spoke just after 9 a.m. ET. His comments followed the news from earlier in the day that lawmakers in Crimea have taken steps toward what they hope would be an eventual split from Ukraine to join the Russian Federation.

Yatsenyuk called the Crimean parliamentarians' action "an illegitimate decision" and said that "Crimea was, is and will be an integral part of Ukraine." [NPR]


If the idea of a 'staged war' seems far-fetched, then I suggest you consider Russia's conflict with Georgia in 2008 which I believe is an example. Note that it was Georgia, not Russia, that struck first in that conflict. (Since, after all, "imperialism is the source of all antagonistic conflicts of the present day world" - see below.)

Why would the Kremlin concoct a Ukraine-Russia conflict?

Moscow's strategic focus has never deviated from the primary objective of total victory over the West IMHO. In this context, how to fight and win a global nuclear war is of the utmost relevance. Examine the quotes below of key Soviet nuclear war-fighting strategists from yesteryear. I think you'll get the idea...

The Soviets never start a war. By definition, the United States or, more generally speaking, "imperialism is the source of all antagonistic conflicts of the present day world, the source of war danger." [General Major A.S. Milovidov, quoted in Soviet Strategy For Nuclear War, p.98]


Speaking of the surprise unleashing of a nuclear war, the following should be noted. Recently the command element of the U.S. army, evidently, does not exclude the possibility of opening military operations even in the main theaters with the use of just conventional means of destruction. Such a beginning of war can create favorable conditions for the movement of all nuclear forces to the regions of combat operations, bringing them into the highest level of combat readiness, and subsequently inflicting the first nuclear strike with the employment in it of the maximum number of missile launch sites, submarines and aircraft at the most favorable moment.

One of the advantages the Soviets see of the conventional phase is the possibility that it provides cover to operations to initiate a nuclear attack, preparations that might otherwise be detected and provide warning. The notion of striking at "the most favorable moment" included in this quote is often encountered in Soviet military literature, especially in regard to surprise attack. [From Soviet Strategy For Nuclear War, p.103]


"We believe that the main determinant in the attack is the most decisive operation possible, having for its purpose the total destruction of the enemy's armed forces, and particularly the destruction of his nuclear weapons; that is, the achievement of results such that he would no longer be capable of offering further resistance within the limits of missions being carried out, or which would be needed for general capitulation. In the past this aim was possible of achievement only with the successive forward movement of land forces (or the enemy) to close with the enemy and to destroy his firepower. In the modern attack, when the mission of destruction can be accomplished by nuclear strikes, made at any depth, practically speaking, forward movement becomes a secondary item. It is not even necessary in certain cases. The situation can arise, for example, when the enemy, as a result of the massive nuclear strikes inflicted upon him, such strikes being the main part of the attack, capitulates and peace-loving forces accede to political power in his country..." [Lt. Gen. G. Lobov, as quoted in Soviet Strategy For Nuclear War, p.26]


"In view of the immense destructive force of nuclear weapons and the extremely limited time available to take effective counter-measures after an enemy launches its missiles, the launching of the first massed nuclear attack acquires decisive importance for achieving the objectives of war." [K. Moskalenko, Marshal of the Soviet Union, as quoted in Soviet Strategy For Nuclear War, p.36]


"Today's weapons make it possible to achieve strategic objectives very quickly. The very first nuclear attack on the enemy may inflict such immense casualties and produce such vast destruction that his economic, moral-political and military capabilities will collapse, making it impossible for him to continue to struggle, and presenting him with the fact of defeat." [Colonel M.P. Skirdo, as quoted in Soviet Strategy For Nuclear War, p.17]


"There is profound error and harm in the disoriented claims of bourgeois ideologues that there will be no victor in a thermonuclear war." [A.S. Milovidov, Russian Military Theorist, as quoted in Soviet Strategy For Nuclear War, p.10]






Thursday, March 06, 2014

Ukraine: Russian intelligence is outsmarting the West

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In recent news, private diplomatic phone conversations between key officials dealing with the Ukraine crisis have been released on YouTube.

The first instance was a "secure" phone call between US Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland and the US ambassador to Ukraine Geoffrey Pyatt in which Nuland infamously said, "F**k the EU!":



Yesterday another phone conversation was released via YouTube, this time between Estonian Minister of Foreign Affairs Urmas Paet and High Representative of the European Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Catherine Ashton. This conversation features the Estonian Foreign Minister referring to the possibility that the snipers who fired on EuroMaidan protesters might have been instigated by EuroMaidan leaders (so he was 'told by someone in Kiev' during a recent visit there):



While the masses will be obsessed by the salacious details and potential implications of these released high quality intercepts of private phone conversations, the real questions that should come to mind most likely won't be popularly contemplated.

First off, how did Russian/Ukrainian intelligence acquire these intercepts?

The intercepts were clearly cherry-picked to serve Moscow's 'conspiratorial worldview' from what is presumably an ocean of communications surveillance available to the Kremlin. This worldview holds that the EuroMaidan uprising and government takeover in Ukraine was covertly backed and facilitated by the EU and US to further isolate Russia, and Western secret services are so evil they had assassins murder EuroMaidan protesters to foment the public outrage that seemingly caused Russian-backed President Viktor Yanukovich to flee office on February 21st (of course, such brutality is characteristic of the Russian secret services rather than U.S. intelligence agencies worried about violating human rights).

Here's the problem with all this.

If Ukrainian and Russian intelligence services are able to gather sensitive communications like the ones leaked, how did the EuroMaidan "plot" ever succeed in taking control in Kiev? Every EuroMaidan move and plan should have been easily tracked and countered.

Yet, President Yanukovich and the secret police never even bothered to pull the plug to the giant, well-lit stage - big screen, professional sound system and all - in the middle of Independence Square in Kiev around which the EuroMaidan demonstrators rallied themselves:



What's more, police were never ordered to protect key public buildings from being "taken over" by EuroMaidaners such as Kiev's city hall and, more importantly, the Regional State Administrative (RSA) buildings throughout Ukraine.



After all, it was the takeover of the RSA's that was used to symbolize how the EU-backed EuroMaidan movement took over Ukraine from the elected government of Viktor Yanukovich:



Yet, the RSA building "takeovers" seemed to be facilitated rather than countered by authorities in the Ukraine. Why is that?

What's most troubling about the release of the two phone conversation intercepts recently is, at this point Russian intelligence apparently believes it's OK to show their hidden hand:

Still, the Nuland–Pyatt leak doesn’t just tell us about U.S.-EU relations. It affords us a deep insight into the intelligence modus operandi of the Russian government.

....Where Western intelligence services like to remain in the shadows — away from the public gaze (mostly) — the Russians use intelligence operations to build their reputation and in doing so assert Russian strategic interests. The Russians are aware that by leaking this phone call, they’re broadcasting their success in intercepting sensitive communications. They’re also teasing the State Department with a more subtle message — “You don’t know how long we’ve been listening, or where else we’re doing so.” Of course, it’s possible that the U.S. recently discovered the Russian operation and stopped it and that the Russians therefore felt they had nothing to lose by going public. However, assuming that wasn’t the case, by showing their hand, the Russians indicate that they are aware the U.S. will now move to harden its communications. In essence, by advertising their theft from this intelligence gold mine, they’ve knowingly allowed the U.S. to better protect it.

Presumably Western intelligence has been shocked to discover that Moscow's surveillance capabilities are what they are. That Western intelligence is far behind the curve versus Moscow is well reflected by how Russia's move on the Crimea came as a surprise:



The truth is that Western intelligence has been out-to-lunch regarding the Russian threat since soon after the 'Cold War ended (really?)':



The concern here is that, if Moscow is now willing to compromise its surveillance capabilities, it suggests the Kremlin believes this particular strategic advantage won't be needed for much longer. Why would that be?! You'd think Russian intelligence would want to keep listening in undetected as long as possible.

Consider this:

Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany told Mr. Obama by telephone on Sunday that after speaking with Mr. Putin she was not sure he was in touch with reality, people briefed on the call said. "In another world," she said. [New York Times, 3/2/14]

Here's a clue.

Have you noticed the Orthodox Christian priests that keep showing up in scenes from the Ukraine?



This is telltale.

Vladimir Putin is in another world alright....he and his Kremlin cohorts have been for decades....it's the world of Russian nationalism (what I call "theo-fascism") centered around the "Russian Idea". He revealed as much late last year in his Message of the President of the Russian Federation to the Federal Assembly, Moscow's equivalent of the American State of the Union address, when Putin quoted Nikolai Berdyaev, a Russian ideologue famed for his 1946 treatise on "The Russian Idea":

"And we know that there are more and more people in the world, who support our stance on the protection of traditional values, which over thousands of years have been the spiritual and moral foundations of our civilization, of all peoples: traditional family values, genuine human life, including religious life—not only material, but also spiritual life, values of humanism and diversity of the world.

Of course, this is a conservative stand. But, according to Nikolai Berdyaev, the meaning of conservatism is not that it impedes movement forward and upward, but that it impedes movement backwards and downwards—to chaotic darkness and the return to a primitive state.

Over recent years we have seen that attempts to impose a supposedly more progressive model of development on other countries have in fact turned into regression, barbarity, and great bloodshed."

What is the "Russian Idea"?:


Russia's Mission

The Russian Idea proceeded....from the belief that the contemporary world was suffering from a global spiritual crisis 'carrying humankind headlong toward catastrophe' (in the words of a present day prophet). It pointed to the inability of the secularized, materialistic and cosmopolitan West to come to grips with this crisis, whose historical source lay in the secular Enlightenment: in the West's rejection of religion as the spiritual basis of politics and in its inability to realize that not the individual but the nation is the foundation of the world order conceived by God; that 'humankind is quantified by nations'.

The Russian Idea pointed to the providential role of Orthodoxy, as uniquely capable of pulling back the world from the brink of the abyss, and to Russia as the instrument of this great mission. While the Russian Idea rejected the 'government's interference in the moral life of the people' (the police state), it also denounced the 'people's interference in state power' (democracy). To both of these it opposed the 'principle of AUTHORITARIAN power'. The state, it taught, must be unlimited because 'only under unlimited monarchial power can the people separate the government from themselves and free themselves to concentrate on moral-social life, on the drive for spiritual freedom'.

The Russian idea did not acknowledge the central postulate of Western political thought concerning the separation of powers (as the institutional embodiment of the neutralization of vice by vice). Instead, it advocated the principle of separation of functions between temporal and spiritual powers: the state guards the country against external foes and the Orthodox church settles the nation's internal conflicts....It cherished the ideal of the nation cum family, requiring neither parliaments, political parties, nor separation of powers. Like the family, the nation would have no need of legal guarnatees or institutional limitations on state's power and its focus should not be the rights, but rather the obligations of its members. The nation's conflicts, according to the Russian Idea, must be reconciled by spiritual, rather than constitutional, authority.

The ideal of the nation as family presupposed the need for salvation from the sinful influences of the 'street' (the West) and, consequently, from a spiritual rebirth and a moral revolution. In the course of this Russia would return 'home' to its pure rural roots, to the tsarist Rus'...

(Excerpt from Yanov's The Russian Challenge, pp.24-25)

You see....the Kremlin (which is a fortress for Russia's executive church and state buildings) has in mind establishing a "kingdom of god" on earth or, more so, a totalitarian, Stalinist "tsardom" where the "czar" (Caesar) is god's holy, annointed king - the holy Muscovite emperor of the "Third Rome" - i.e., christ incarnate.

To further understand what the "Russian Idea" is about, please read the articles on the right side of this blog under my profile with the heading, "The Psychotic 'Russian Idea'".

Thus, there truly is a diabolical logic to Putin's seeming madness, and it's well represented in THIS VIDEO.

And the world's concern is focused on the mullahs in Iran?!

"If we presume the coming transformation of the Communist Party into the Russian Orthodox Party of the Soviet Union, we would obtain truly the ideal state, one which would fulfill the historical destiny of the Russian people. It is a question of the Orthodoxization of the entire world." - Gennadii Shimanov, as quoted on the opening page of Alexander Yanov's "The Russian Challenge and the Year 2000" (1987)

Shimanov did not emphasize the mystical aspects of Christianity; for him, as is typical in a fundamentalist outlook, religion was but an instrument of proper social organization and a code of behavior. In Shimanov’s view, religion was designed to be a substitute for the Marxist ideology as a method of better organizing of the society. Like other fundamentalists, Shimanov believed that God had a decisive influence on politics and that the Soviet state had been predetermined to accomplish some universal mission; it was nothing less than “the instrument for making the millenary kingdom on the earth.” On the one hand, Soviet communism revealed the fallacy of “old Christianity,” unable to realize its principles in practical life and therefore consigned to oblivion. On the other hand, the USSR brought a principally new type of the “ideocratic state” to the world; this was the state that perfectly met—at least in theory—the requirements of a society of true believers. The core of the Soviet system was the omnipotent Communist Party, permeating every single cell of the society, and therefore capable of carrying out an independent policy, free of selfinterests and the “rabble’s whims.” In principle, this provided an opportunity to transform the Communist Party into the “Orthodox Party of the Soviet Union,” and, consequently, to create a “truly Christian community.” In this way, Shimanov actually tried to justify the Soviet regime, claiming that it was “God’s instrument.” - Mikhail D. Suslov in "The Fundamentalist Utopia of Gennady Shimanov from the 1960s–1980s"

"An empire of the Orthodox Balkan peoples together with the empire of Holy Russia - not the present marxist, un-Russian Russia, but Holy Orthodox Russia - can bring happiness to all mankind and realize that mystical millennial kingdom of peace on earth, which appeared in a vision on the island of Patmos to that glorious apostle and visionary, St John the Evangelist. For that Millennium has never yet been made a reality in the history of the world, and what has been destined by God, must become a reality. Who will make it a reality if not those who up to the present day have been the most martyred and reviled, carved up and downtrodden, i.e., the Slavs and the other Orthodox Peoples?" - Serbian Bishop Nikolai Velimirovich (1880-1956) in "A Treasury of Serbian Orthodox Spirituality"

"My feelings tell me that someday a Slavic Orthodox tsar shall take the socialist movement in hand and, with the blessing of the Church, set up a socialist form of life in place of the bourgeois one. And this Socialism will be a new and severe....form of slavery..." - Konstantin Leont'ev


Note that Vladimir Putin became Russia's "president", in effect the new "annointed czar" (read: Caesar) of a resurgent "Holy Russian Empire", with the start of the third millenium (i.e., he became acting president on New Year's Eve in 1999)
. This is symbolic in that Putin "rose to power" and the Russian empire began to rise again on the prophetic "third day" just as Christ rose again 2000 years earlier:

But do not forget this one thing, dear friends: With the Lord a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like a day. [2 Peter 3:8]


Oh...


And then the lawless one will be revealed,
whom the Lord Jesus will overthrow with the breath of his mouth and destroy by the splendor of his coming.

[2 Thessalonians 2:8]


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