The war of aggression, which Russia insidiously launched against Ukraine on February 24, 2022, has only one goal – the destruction of Ukraine as a state, the annihilation of its human, cultural, and spiritual heritage, which has already become clear to the entire civilized world.
This is stated in the appeal of the “All-Ukrainian Council” to the public in response to the aggressive calls, voiced by the Russian Federation, to “de-Satanize” Ukraine.
Freedom of religion and belief is one of the basic human rights in Ukraine, a kind of litmus test for checking the state of democracy in the country.
In totalitarian Russia, in the conditions of Orthodox fundamentalism, government control over religious organizations and their diffuse coexistence, Russians have long been deprived of such a right. Constantly looking for an excuse for the evil committed, the Russian authorities resort to new forms of hypocrisy.
Having exhausted their sham argument about the “denazification” and “demilitarization” of Ukraine, the Russian propaganda media are spinning a new goal of the Russian invasion, which is “de-Satanization”, arguing that Ukraine, as they claim, has turned into a “totalitarian hypersect”, where citizens have allegedly abandoned Orthodox values.
Meanwhile, the largest church in Russia, the Russian Orthodox Church, has become a component of the Russian aggressive state ideology, “sacralizing” and legitimizing the violence committed in Ukraine.
What “traditional Orthodox values” can be used to explain the mass murders of the civilian population in Bucha, Kharkiv, Mariupol, and Izium? How can one explain unmotivated brutality towards Ukrainian prisoners of war? Only by the desire for violence against everyone who disagrees with the dictates of the “values of the Russian world,” sanctified by the main ideologist and hierarch of the Russian Orthodox Church, Kirill Gundyaev, and its de facto ruler Putin.
What “traditional Orthodox values” can a country that still keeps the mummified body of Lenin – the greatest fighter against religion – offer? Who does not know his statement: “We must fight against religion. This is the alphabet of all materialism.”
And what “Orthodox motives” can be applied to explain the construction and grandiose opening of the main temple of the Armed Forces of Russia, aka “the temple of war,” or the “temple of Satan”?
Beneath the pathetic ideas of protecting Orthodox values lies the spiritual and moral bankruptcy of the Russian government and church, which serves as one of the tools of this new form of Satanism. This is exactly how a rapist’s psychology manifests itself – to blame the victim, and then kill her in order to cover the traces and get rid of the evidence of the crime.
Therefore, Russia itself, not being a value-driven European country and stuck in another dimension, needs de-Satanization, along with demilitarization, de-imperialization, and de-Putization.
On the other hand, Ukraine has long proven its loyalty to the primacy of democratic values as the main vector of its development. And now, up in arms, the Ukrainians defend their right to freedom and independence – both territorial and spiritual. What for Russia, the barbarian country, is seen as “thousands of sects” is for Ukraine the realization of the rights and freedoms of its citizens.
Ukrainians are aware that independence and freedom (freedom of religion, freedom of belief, freedom of speech, or any other freedom) are not a given, but something that requires constant fighting for them. And Ukraine continues to demonstrate an example of such a fight, each of these 248 days of the ongoing war.
We call for an end to the hypocritical and absurd accusations, under the false pretext of which Russia is carrying out yet another attack on the rights and freedoms of the citizens of the sovereign state of Ukraine! We call on the entire civilized world to rally around the defense of Ukraine as an outpost of democratic values and freedoms!
