In his recent propaganda-ridden oped, the President of the Russian Federation (the aggressor power), Vladimir Putin, repeated almost all the clichés and myths preached for decades by the hierarchs of the Moscow Patriarchate in Ukraine.
In particular, Putin repeated the myth of “Odesa Khatyn”, which he branded the fire on May 2, 2014, in the House of Trade Unions of Odesa. For Putin, as for ROCinU Metropolitan Agafangel, this is a terrible tragedy, not the salvation of Odesa from yet another terrorist group.
Here is how Putin writes about the failure of plans to create a terrorist organization “Odesa People’s Republic”: “On May 2, 2014, in Odesa, where Ukrainian neo-Nazis burned people alive, [they] set up a new Khatyn? The followers of Bandera were ready to commit the same massacre in Crimea, Sevastopol, Donetsk, and Luhansk. They still do not abandon such plans, waiting for their time to come. But they won’t see it come ”
The same opinion is shared by Metropolitan Agafangel (Savvin) of Odesa. Here is his quote: “What happened on May 2, 2014, is a terrible tragedy that shook everyone, not only the people of Odesa, but also the healthy forces of Ukraine… Such a terrible tragedy shall not be forgiven by God or the people. Moreover, they do not repent, do not admit that they have done evil. I think the Lord will send His punishment upon them… And those who did this evil are just fascists of the highest degree. People were thrown down on the ground and beaten with sticks,” the hierarch of the Moscow Patriarchate said in an interview with pro-Russian media outlet Vesti.
In the same interview, Agafangel said that nationalism “is always an evil in whatever form it manifests itself.
“Western powers directly interfered in the internal affairs of Ukraine and supported the coup,” Putin wrote, commenting on the events of 2014, while forgetting to mention his “little green men” invading Crimea, as well as warlord Girkin and hundreds of other Russian mercenaries and active-duty troops.
The infamous Zaporishia-based Metropolitan of the ROCinU, Luka (Kovalenko), also, even ahead of Putin’s article, accused the United States, not Russia, of occupying Ukraine. “America is at war with Russia at the hands of the citizens of Ukraine,” Kovalenko wrote at the time. He even claimed that “America is doing the same in our country as Hitler plotted to do after conquering our lands.”
Putin is also convinced that Ukraine has been turned into an “anti-Russia” and a platform for attacks on Russia, while being stubbornly silent about the shelling of Ukraine from the Russian territory and the invasion of Crimea: “Step by step, Ukraine was drawn into a dangerous geopolitical game aimed at transforming Ukraine to a barrier between Europe and Russia, on the bridgehead against Russia,” Putin wrote.
In addition, Putin reiterated the ROCinU’s main thesis about the “civil war” in Ukraine. “The coup, followed by the actions of the Kyiv authorities, inevitably provoked confrontation and civil war… Russia did everything to stop the fratricide,” Putin wrote cynically.
The head of the Russian Orthodox Church in Ukraine, Onufriy (Berezovsky), is also convinced that there is “civil war” raging in Ukraine and that their religious organization has done everything to stop the “fratricide.” In fact, word for word, Vladimir Putin repeated this in his latest oped.
In this way, Putin and the ROCinU, as allies, are unanimously spreading false propaganda narratives to the detriment of the Ukrainian people and Ukraine as such in the international arena, spreading lies about the ongoing events, including the Russian invasion and the fight against Russian occupiers.
Against this background, the ROCinU plays the role of “hostage” and “persecuted church,” which is allegedly stumped upon by Ukrainian authorities, as well as the collective “West.” It also sacralizes everything pro-Russian propaganda says, covering it up with the word of God and Christian virtues.
However, the fictional “persecution” may well become a new argument for Russia’s military aggression under the pretext of “protecting Russian citizens” because the ROCinU is also happy to support the fake propaganda concept of a “triune people” who have allegedly been artificially divided.
