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Gefira 89: Once a liar, always a liar

A Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year! Such will be the wishes that the EU leaders are going to say to each other. No, not such. Christmas will be left out of it. Maybe a Merry Climate and a Happy Wokeism! The aging blonde model on an EU catwalk is going the say these words, along with the bunch of other woke women who are in charge of the fate of the millions of European Europeans and African Europeans and Asian Europeans. Such and similar wishes are going to be uttered by the bellicose peace-loving men from NATO. The bellicose peace-loving commissioners and high representatives are going to ensure us that Putin has lost the war and that Ukraine has won it; that we are defending values against anti-values, and so on. The usual stuff.

So, a Merry Climate and a Happy Wokeism, our dear readers! What does the coming year have in store for us? Yes, you guessed it right: more of the same. The same climate change insanity and the same wokeism; the same myriads of sanctions and the same wars for democracy and human rights around the globe; the same ugliness of the European Song Contest and the same millions of immigrants; the same complaints about the far-right and the same riots by Antifa; the same inflation coupled with financial crises, and the same expenditure on military purposes.

So, abandoning the far-right, intolerant, outdated wishes of a Merry Christmas and replacing them with a Merry Climate and a Happy Wokeism, brace yourself for the same problems, the same pandemics of lunacy, the same hatreds and the same biases, the same double-standards and the same wild accusations. Brace yourself for mendacity and surrealism; brace yourself for a continuation of a world turned inside out and upside down. If you want to have a clear picture of the days to come, watch the latest Jaguar ad. If you haven’t seen it yet, please do. If you feel comfortable in a world like the one from this commercial – then lucky you! If, however, you perceive the world encapsulated in this ad as repulsive, then lasciate ogni speranza.

Gefira Financial Bulletin #89 is available now

Mendacity, Mendacity, Mendacity
Data protection and Climate protection
Mario Draghi or why Europe’s economy is lagging behind
America first, but America of which Americans?

Ukraine will follow in Syria’s footsteps

What do Syria and Ukraine have in common? What do these two countries, separated from one another by thousands of miles, characterized by a different culture and religion, share? Oh yes, they share the same fate, albeit not played out concurrently.

Syria. We have all been notified of the collapse of the “Assad regime”. How did that come about? In a simple way. The Russian support for President Assad was withdrawn, leaving the rebellious forces free to act and that was it. The state of Syria fell like a house of cards.

Ukraine. We will soon be notified of the collapse of the “Zelensky government”. How will it come about? In a simple way. The American support for President Zelensky will be withdrawn, leaving the Russian forces free to act and that will be it. The state of Ukraine will fall like a house of cards.

Sure enough, the details differ. It is a bunch of states – Israel, Turkey, the United States – that were Syria’s enemies, it is one state – Russia – that is Ukraine’s enemy. The territories captured by Turkey and Israel in Syria may be held by the respective countries for good or temporarily; the territories captured by Russia in Ukraine are captured for good. Syria’s president has been and is going to be referred to as dictator by the Western media and politicians; Ukraine’s president, however, has been and is going to be called a heroic fighter for freedom and democracy by the same media.

There are also phenomena that are similar. Syria after Assad is going to remain a destabilized country, just like Libya, just like Iraq, just like Afghanistan. Ukraine after Zelensky, too, is going to be a destabilized country, though surely in a different way due to its different ethnic composition and its heritage. Syria has lost a huge number of its citizens, and so has Ukraine. Neither Syrians, nor Ukrainians are going to go back to their countries: especially those Syrians and those Ukrainians who have settled in Europe.

Assad’s fall has been heralded as the West’s victory, Russia’s defeat. Zelensky’s fall will be heralded as Russia’s victory and the West’s debacle. Except that it won’t. The Western media and politicians will continue their mantra of “Putin has lost this war.”

Why will Ukraine follow in Syria’s footsteps? Why has Syria preceded Ukraine? Because both states have been created artificially. Upon the disintegration of the Ottoman Empire after the First World War a few million Arabs inhabiting the Middle East have been made to become Syrians while other millions of Arabs have been made to become Jordanians or Lebanese. Upon the disintegration of the Russian Empire after the First World War a few million Russians have been made to become Ukrainians, while other few million have been made to become Belorussians. During their supposedly independent existence both Syria and Ukraine have been playthings at the hands of their neighbours and the world’s hegemons.

Ah, one more peculiar difference. Terrorist organizations fought against Assad, while other terrorist organizations fought for Zelensky. That is to say, whether those organizations are terrorist depends a lot on who labels them terrorist. Terrorists who fight for us are no terrorists, as the well-known diplomatic maxim says. Similarly, presidents who are with us are democratic leaders who manage democratic governments; presidents who are against us are – yes! yes! – dictators and their governments are regimes. Simple, is it not?

So long as Russians were capable of supporting Assad that long he could be the country’s president. The moment that support was withdrawn, he fled to Moscow. So long as Americans are capable of supporting Zelensky that long he will be the country’s president. The moment that support is withdrawn, he will flee to somewhere in the West. Or will be killed. No, he will be involved in an accident. He will be killed in that he will be involved in an accident. Or maybe there will be an attempt at poisoning him, which he will miraculously survive to eventually die under mysterious circumstances.

Two countries, two chessboards. The big players will eventually shake hands over those chessboards, establishing a new pecking order between them. For a time being, that is. The two chessboards will be left with but few playing pieces, with most of the others being destroyed or dispelled in the world. The two chessboards – Syria and Ukraine – are just two entities in a larger set of chessboards: Yugoslavia, Libya, Iraq, Afghanistan, you name it. The big players will find new chessboards to settle their accounts. New rogue states will appear, a new mantra of “this or that dictator must go” will be heard. It might be Iran, it might be Turkey; it might be Belarus, it might be Georgia. There are many chessboards around the globe with which the big players can settle their accounts.

Ukraine’s President Zelensky seems to be glad of the fall of President Bashar al-Assad. Has president Zelensky given it a thought? If he is clever enough, he ought to see in President Bashar al-Assad himself, he ought to see in President Bashar al-Assad’s fate his own fate. If he is clever enough and sufficiently judicious, he ought to be making arrangements for a quick plane flight from Kiev to Washington, or Paris, or London. With the whole family. It is not that President Zelensky needs to fear Russians: he needs to fear Ukrainians. He does not need to fear the dead – though, who knows? they may come to haunt him in his night dreams – but he needs to fear the living. Those with amputated limbs, those whose sons and brothers, husbands and fathers have fallen. President Zelensky needs to fear the millions of relatives of those who have lost their lives and their health in order that the West might spite Putin and Russia, in order that Ukraine might lose a quarter of its territory, in order that he might travel the world over away from, far away from, the hostilities on the ground.

Who’s Next or What’s Next?

An avalanche of events within a couple of days. [1] an attempt that resembled a Kiev-like coup d’état in Tbilisi, Georgia; [2] the results of the presidential election in Romania recognized as invalid; [3] Syria’s President Bashar al-Assad toppled. What’s coming next?

The unrest in Tbilisi, Georgia, has been compounded by Ukraine and the Baltic States, which imposed sanctions on Georgia! Yes, Ukraine, which is supposedly struggling hard for survival, and the three teeny-weeny Baltic States imposed sanction on Georgia, on the ruling Georgian Georgian Dream party, which won the parliamentary election. The Maidan in Tbilisi or the colour revolution – whichever name we assign to the event – is being played out just as it was played out in Belgrade or Kiev or Minsk or, or, or. The West’s Red Guards* – especially the youth – have taken to the streets, using all the tricks that have already been utilized in other places, at other times. European Union flags (the fingerprints of the powers behind) are waved, women approach the police troops with flowers, children participate, interviews are conducted on the spot during which people shed tears to show how oppressed they have been, posters are shown to the cameras with legend demanding the resignation of the current government and complaining about violence, lack of democracy, and lack of human rights. Everything is copied from other places, from other times.

The presidential election in Romania has been annulled by Romania’s supreme court – although a day earlier the same court announced the validity of the voting process and voting results – because voters might have been misled by misinformation about the candidates provided to them by… TikTok. No need to add that the results have been annulled for this simple reason that it was Calin Georgescu who won the majority of votes, and Calin Georgescu appears to be a Romanian Viktor Orbán, which is precisely something that the European Union cannot come to terms with. Brussels has enough trouble with the Hungarian Orbán, and Slovakia’s Robert Fico. The annulment and the resultant repeat of the election is something that the European Union is used to applying. This practice first began with referendums held in particular countries about their accession to the European Moloch. If a referendum revealed that the majority of the voters were against having their country joined to the EU, the referendum was repeated, until the desired result was obtained. Romanians must understand that they need to elect an EU-backed candidate or else they will prove that they do not know what democracy is all about and will be forced to elect again, and again, and again.

The intensification of the civil war in Syria has within the last two weeks gained momentum and eventually brought about the collapse of President Bashar al-Assad, habitually referred to by the Western media as a dictator. The president is rumoured to have fled to Russia. Damascus, Syria’s capital, has been taken over by Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham, which, depending on your political stance, may be categorized as a rebel, terrorist or opposition organization. The West has eventually hunted Bashar al-Assad down, a target that has been pursued for years. Israeli troops are also reported to have entered southern Syria. Was the collapse of the Bashar al-Assad government occasioned by the fact that its major supporter – Russia – has been engaged in Ukraine? Or maybe the United States has struck a secret deal with Russia according to which Moscow will give up on Syria, while Washington will give up on Ukraine?

Meanwhile the cooperation between Moscow and Minsk is tightening to the effect that the famed Oreshnik** missile launch-pads will be deployed to Belarus.

All of which suggests the following development of events:

[1] Syria is likely to become another Libya or another Iraq in that it is going to face a long period of disability marked by warring factions and a lack of a central government. The country might be occupied partly by Turkey, partly by Israel.

[2] Iran may be next on the kill list. That’s the last state in the Middle East that is regarded by Israel – and hence by the United States – as an enemy.

[3] The next Maidan will be attempted in Minsk, Belarus, because Alexandr Lukashenko, Belorussian president, is again a candidate in the presidential election that is scheduled for January 26, 2025. Minsk has already survived such a Maidan, so the Belorussian authorities will be well prepared to crush another one.

[4] Any possible elections in Hungary may be declared null and void if Viktor Orbán wins again, failing which the Hungarian prime minister may as well reckon with an assassination (see the Robert Fico case in Slovakia).

[5] The European Union is evidently turning into an aggressive and dictatorial political bloc that will tolerate no swerving from the course charted in Brussels. Disobedient governments will experience Maidans, or have their elections annulled, or face sanctions, or have their leaders assassinated. Taking into account that it is Germany that leads the European Union, one might say that a Fourth Reich is in the making.

[6] Belarus and Georgia, two countries that have historically been either part of Russia (Belarus), or united with Russia by means of a political union (Georgia), in the face of all the political pressure, economic sanctions and enormous interference from the West, might be pushed into Moscow’s embrace. The same conclusion might be drawn by the other Caucasian states as well as the states of Central Asia. They all might be pushed into Moscow’s embrace . The resultant union might be like that between Russia and Belarus. In other words the Russian Empire is about to be re-created (certainly not the Soviet Union, as this possible political structure is not going to indulge in communist ideas).

Who knows? It might be that in a few years’ time history will turn full circle with the re-birth of the Russian Empire. A rump Ukraine will probably become a buffer-zone state, as Moscow may not be willing to incorporate Ukraine’s westernmost regions inhabited by rabidly anti-Russian Ukrainians, and the West will not be strong enough to draw this westernmost part into its sphere of interests.

————–

*Red Guards – these were the shock troops, made up of predominantly of young people, who – as the Communist Party’s battering ram – carried out the Cultural Revolution in Maoist China, suppressing opposition from conservative and prudent sections of Chinese society.

**Oreshnik – that hypersonic missile that recently hit Yuzhmash, a military plant in Ukraine. Though it was not fitted with either a nuclear or any other explosive device, the damage it caused is comparable to that caused by an A-bomb.

Russia doesn’t care about sanctions

Having conducted an interview with Russia’s President Vladimir Putin, Tucker Carlson has done recently the same with Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov. In this eighty-minute talk the interlocutors covered all the current political problems, focusing on Ukraine. Minister Sergei Lavrov enumerated major events leading up to the current war, facts that the Western man in the street is either ignorant of because the Western media choose not to present them, or facts that the Western man in the street is familiar with, but has been provided with an entirely different interpretation. We are not going to repeat all the points that were mentioned during the Carlson-Lavrov talk. What we are going to do is to call the reader’s attention to the following passage from the interview.

Tucker Carlson asked Sergei Lavrov about conditions the fulfilment of which would induce Russia to discontinue the military operation. The Russian foreign minister repeated the three principal demands:

[1] Ukraine must not be a member of NATO or indeed of any alliance nor even be allowed to conduct military exercises on its territory with the participation of foreign troops;

[2] the territorial changes must be accepted: that is, not only the incorporation of Crimea into Russia, but also the fact that the regions of Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporozhye, and Kherson have now constitutionally become parts of Russia by the will of the people living there;

[3] the basic human rights as they are stipulated in the UN Charter about freedom of religious belief, preservation of the native language (in this case Russian) and the like must be abided by in Ukraine.

As Minister Lavrov finished the enumeration of Russia’s demands, Tucker Carlson – probably thinking that Sergei Lavrov forgot about one more point – asked whether Russia wouldn’t like to have the sanctions lifted. To this, Sergei Lavrov replied that sanctions were of little or no importance to Russia because

[1] Russia has learnt to live with them;

[2] Russia has become stronger because of them; and because

[3] Russia has learnt that autarky (economic self-sufficiency) is the best guarantor of independence.

This really should not come as a surprise to anyone. Iran, which is a much smaller country than Russia, has lived under sanctions for over forty years now; Cuba, a very small country, has coped with sanctions for a much longer period. Both these countries continue to survive and to challenge the United States. Russia has all the natural resources that an economy needs, and Russia has really learnt to rely on itself, or – to be more precise – Russia has learnt not to rely on the West, and not to trust the West, which was also what Minister Lavrov said.

Third front – Syria

When we think about the Crimean War of 1853-1856, we tend to think about fights that took place in the Crimean peninsula. The very name suggests it. It was the time when the Western powers – predominantly England and France, supported by Turkey and the Kingdom of Sardinia – made an attempt at weakening Russia. The hostilities, however, were not confined to the said peninsula. Russia’s enemies attempted landing troops, shelling ports and cities also along the Russian coastline of the Baltic and White Seas as well as in the Far East and the Caucasus.

Much the same happened when after the October Revolution of 1917 the Western powers tried to crush nascent Soviet Russia: they sent troops to intervene from the north (the Baltic Sea), from the south (the Black Sea) and in the Far East.

When today the West is waging a proxy war against Russia, it is, too, trying to engage Moscow in as many places as it is possible. Hence the Kremlin does not pay attention merely to Ukraine: it needs to be on guard in many other places simultaneously. Recently we have informed our readers about the riots in Georgia, where the Kiev-Maidan scenario is playing out a second time, and Georgia is being primed to become another Ukraine i.e. a state that will act aggressively towards Russia. so, willy-nilly, Moscow needs to divert some of Russia’s resources and troops to the Caucasus.

As if that were not enough, it is also in recent days that the long-term conflict in Syria has been reinvigorated, with the Turkish troops capturing Aleppo, and with the ISIS units making assaults here and there. Why in Syria? Because Syria’s President Bashar al-Assad has been supported by Russia (and Iran), because Russians have saved him from being toppled by the United States, because Russians are militarily present in Syria. Under such circumstances, the Kremlin needs to attend to Ukraine, to Georgia, and Syria simultaneously; Russia must also have reserves and remain on its guard as to where else a new conflict is likely to erupt.

True, the interests of particular nations in the region are opposed and of long historical standing. The Middle East – once a part of the Ottoman Empire – emerged as a mosaic of mainly Arab states at the end of World War One. The French and the British played major roles in creating “nations” and drawing or re-drawing state borders. The famed Sykes-Picot Agreement of 1916 was all about weakening Turkey and granting control of the Middle East to these two European powers. Yes, Russia was to participate in all this, but since Russia collapsed due to two revolutions and the ensuing civil war, it was the French and the British that remained in the region as dominant powers. Some of the national borders were drawn by means of a ruler (look at a map) with no regard for the ethnic or religious reality.

The Balfour Declaration of 1917 promising the establishment of a home for the Jewish people added yet another piece to the Middle East political puzzle. The tensions in the region were exacerbated by the ever growing influx of the Jewish people to Palestine after World War Two. The ethnic composition of the Middle East underwent an appreciable change. The Arab – Muslim – world stood up to the expansion of the State of Israel, with Israel being eventually backed by the United States, while some of the Arab nations relied on the support of the Soviet Union.

Of the two American allies – Saudi Arabia and Iran – the latter changed its course in 1979 and became hostile to Washington. Saudi Arabia – drawn into the American sphere of interests – has long participated in the notorious worldwide scheme of backing the dollar as the world currency of international exchange in that Saudi Arabia would sell oil exclusively for dollars and made the other OPEC countries do the same. Riyadh remained on hostile terms with Tehran for decades. It is only recently that Riyadh – also due to the political influence of Beijing – re-purposed its foreign policy and buried the war hatched with Tehran.

Today, Turkey is reviving its dreams of recreating the Ottoman Empire. Ankara is active in Syria, but also in Africa (especially in Libya), and is attempting to extend its political leverage to all Turkish peoples in Central Asia, some of which used to be Soviet republics, some of which live in the far east of the Russian Federation.

The Middle East, the Caucasus (Georgia, but also Armenia along with Azerbaijan) and Ukraine: three conflagrations in which Russia is involved, into which Russia is drawn. Three conflagrations that tap into Russia’s resources. The United States might be aiming at either extending Moscow’s activities and thus weakening Russia, or at toppling Bashar al-Assad (Assad must go! as Barack Obama and Hilary Clinton used to repeat), or at both.

Georgia – repeat of Ukraine

These days there are street riots being held in Tbilisi, Georgia’s capital city. Why? Well, because the ruling Dream Party has announced a delay in joining Georgia to the European Union (does it not remind you of something?), and while Georgia’s president – Salome Zourabichvili – has opposed the ruling party and called on the citizens to protest. The protests are supported by the West – the United States and the European Union – which claims that the recent parliamentary election were fraudulent. Georgia, according to the West, ought to hold new elections till Georgians elect the pro-Western parties. Sorry, till Georgians restore democracy and human rights.

Who is Georgia’s President Salome Zourabichvili, the woman who encourages protests against Georgia’s government and parliamentary majority? For all practical purposes she is French: she was born in France, educated in France, held French citizenship and made a career in the French diplomatic corps, acting among others as French ambassador to… Georgia. Ah yes, she was born to Georgian parents, but that’s about everything that makes her Georgian. Also Zbigniew Brzeziński was born to Polish parents, yet he identified as an American. By the way, during her educational career Salome Zourabichvili attended Columbia University, where she studied under the tutelage of… yes, Zbigniew Brzeziński. That’s how much Georgian Salome Zourabichvili is. But back to the street riots.

It somehow happens so that whenever a nation elects parties, prime ministers, presidents or heads of state that are even slightly not pro-Western, such a nation immediately has a revolution on its hands and is immediately beset with accusations of running foul of democracy and violating human rights. At present, that’s the fate of Georgia. More to it. A nation that is sceptical towards the West is automatically accused of acting on Russia’s advice, Russia’s orders, for Russia’s money. At present, that’s precisely what the Georgian Dream Party is accused of. It’s all as simple as that.

Now, the street riots in Tbilisi are comparable to the street riots that took place in Kiev in 2013/2014. Precisely the same forces were at play in Ukraine’s capital as are now in Georgia’s capital. Young, impressionable people yell their demand to join Georgia to the European Union – because, as we all know, there is no salvation outside the European Union – while the police are trying to keep the rioters under control, which they fail, as did their counterparts in Kiev ten years earlier, because their orders are to handle the rioters with kid gloves (such were also the orders that the Ukrainian police took ten years earlier). Soon, if not already, the rioters will start jumping and chanting “Who’s not jumping is a Moskal*(=Russian)!” as their Ukrainian counterparts did in 2013/2014 in Kiev. Because – you did expect it, didn’t you? – the delay that their ruling party announced in joining Georgia to the European Union was dictated by – yes! yes! – Russia. How otherwise? Just as it was in 2013 in the case of Ukraine! Again this Russian serpent suggesting a poisonous apple this time to Georgians who are on the threshold of entering the Garden of Eden known as the European Union. And – who knows? – on the threshold of joining peaceful-loving, defensive NATO. The ongoing war in Ukraine and the hundreds of thousands of victims do not seem to make an impression on Georgian protesters. Evidently, they also want to sit in the trenches, to have their arms and legs torn away by bombs and grenades, to have their cities shelled, to have their cemeteries filled to overflowing with corpses of very young men, draped with Georgian national flags. No price is too high for preserving democracy and human rights, is it?

Before Salome Zourabichvili as president, Georgia had one Mikheil Saakashvili as its head of state. Do you remember him? An adventurer that very few could rival. He took power in Georgia by means of… street riots and one of the many colour revolutions, accusing the acting government of… fraudulent elections. The same script is enacted again and again around the globe, and nobody seems to take notice. As president, Mikheil Saakashvili applied a shock therapy to the nation, purging the police and the administration, raising the military budget, yet lowering social expenditure and what not. He soon ran foul of his nation and prior to the next presidential election, with no hope of being reelected, he fled the country amid accusations of having opposition activists tortured. He landed a job in… Ukraine, of all the places, becoming governor of the Odessa region. And you know what? He wholeheartedly supported the Kiev Maidan of 2013/2014!

It did not last long till Ukraine’s president Petro Poroshenko – surely out of gratitude for his services – deprived him of Ukrainian citizenship. To be the governor of the Odessa region Mikheil Saakashvili needed to acquire Ukrainian citizenship, just as Salome Zourabichvili needed to renounce her French citizenship prior to running for president in Georgia. Such a formality. How often and how easily the pawns at the hands of the managers of the world change their citizenship! How often they hold citizenship of two or three countries simultaneously! But then, that’s probably one of those sacrosanct “hyooman rytes”. Such individuals, those who are our and presidents, renounce or accept citizenship the way you and me change clothes from casual to professional to casual, as the circumstances dictate.

You won’t really be surprised if you learn that – I quote Wikipedia – Mikheil Saakashvili “received an LL.M. from Columbia Law School […] took classes at the School of International and Public Affairs and the George Washington University Law School [and] received a diploma from the [talk of the wolf!] International Institute of Human Rights in Strasbourg, France.” What a talented guy!

We have such talented men and women across Europe and across the world. They have necessarily been raised by the powers that be at Western universities or institutes, where they have been trained in – why – democracy and human rights!

It appears Georgia – just like any country – must have rulers with the Western blessing or else. Or else, Georgia will have unruly youth in Tbilisi’s centre chanting “Кто не скачет, тот москаль!” [He who is not jumping is a Moskal(=Russian)!]. This chanting and this jumping is repeated again and again and again in various cities across the world and… nobody seems to take notice of this pattern. Strange – or perhaps admirable – how the West manages to always have crowds of people in the streets of various capital cities at the West’s beckoning. In Moscow, in Tbilisi, in Kiev, in Minsk, in Warsaw, in Budapest, in Belgrade, in the Arabic states and about anywhere in the world.

The young men are protesting today to have their limbs cut off tomorrow. They are rioting today to have their dead bodies wrapped in Georgian national flags tomorrow. They are following the bidding of the managers of the world today to be slaughtered like lambs tomorrow. They could watch Ukraine and learn from Ukraine’s fate, but learn they will not. When push comes to shove, Salome Zourabichvili will travel the world over in search of support – the way Zelensky has been doing so for the past three years – to eventually find a sanctuary in her native France or elsewhere in the West. When push comes to shove, Georgian youth will desperately pay through the nose to illegally leave the country and thus avoid conscription. Only the lucky will be able to leave, though. The majority will be drafted and will pay the price the way their Ukrainian peers have been paying the price for the last three years. The Georgian youth could learn from the fate of Ukraine but learn they will not. Sadly. They think they fight for democracy and human rights. It never occurs to them that they are tools – disposable tools – replaceable pawns – biodegradable pieces on “The Grand Chessboard” of the Brzezińskis of this world.

*Moskal (москаль) (literally: inhabitant of Moscow and the region) is an ethnic slur for a Russian.

Which of the Western Christian religious leaders would even dare to think?

On November 28 this year, His Holiness Patriarch Kirill, head of the Russian Orthodox Church (roughly an equivalent of the head of the Church of England), gave a speech at the 26th World Russian People’s Council. Here are the points that he addressed:

War in Ukraine. Patriarch Kirill views the conflict as the hostilities between two fraternal nations, hostilities that are fuelled by the managers of the world who pursue the policy of divide and rule. One of the goals of the war is to instil fear in people so as to make them obedient and compliant. Christians, said Patriarch Kirill, are, however, not afraid of the end of the world because Christians are awaiting the end of the world and the final judgment, the victory of good over evil.
Neo-paganism. A phenomenon that is taking root in Russia and although it is as yet a marginal trend, it nonetheless poses a threat to the existence of the nation. It is not merely Russia but also Ukraine, which are fraught with neo-pagans who – in the case of Ukraine – are so strong as to form their own military units. Their ideology or set of beliefs is very similar to Nazism.
Russophobia, a phenomenon that is produced in many universities. Patriarch Kirill posed a question why universities paid by the whole Russian nation produce so many individuals who dislike, despise or hate Russia. Similarly, he posed a question why there are so many books for children and adolescents that disseminate ideas that target the family, morality and all traditional values.
Abortion. Patriarch Kirill repeated as many times before that pregnancy termination was evil and that it ought to be forbidden by law. He praised the many local initiatives acting against abortion.
Excessive alcohol consumption. A problem that Russia has been beset with and continues to be so. The head of the Russian Orthodox Church called on taking up measures to curb this pernicious phenomenon.
Immigration. Patriarch Kirill said that too large a number of non-Russian, non-Orthodox immigrants with a different cultural code was a threat to the very existence of the Russian nation and Russian or orthodox civilization. He also exposed proponents of immigration as individuals who do not care about people from outside Russia but want to enrich themselves employing cheap labour.

Which of the Western Christian religious leaders would as much as think about saying anything against immigration? Against abortion? Against schools and universities that produce people who dislike, despise or hate their own national heritage?

Milei shows central bankers how to do it right

Argentina’s President Javier Milei, whom we praised in our article in February this year for his sober views and realpolitik, is showing his clout. Since he has been in office (exactly one year), applying radical measures, he has brought inflation in Argentina sharply down. At the beginning of his term of office, monthly inflation stood at 25.5 %, but it has now fallen to 3.5 %. This success is based on a comprehensive “shock program”, which included far-reaching cuts:

Reduction in government spending: Milei halved the number of ministries and laid off numerous civil servants. Subsidies, for example for energy and transportation, as well as social benefits such as food subsidies and support for soup kitchens were also cut.
Monetary and fiscal policy: Argentina’s national currency, the peso, was devalued and a strict austerity program was introduced to reduce the budget deficit. The aim was to achieve a balanced national budget.
Market-oriented reforms: Milei was guided by ultra-liberal principles, aiming for a drastic reduction in the state apparatus and greater deregulation.

The FED or the ECB take years to get inflation under control, surrounded by crowds of employees, in their towers in Frankfurt (ECB) and Basel (BIS), in their bunkers in Fort Knox, cut off from reality, with the media serving them, convincing the public of the efficiency, caring and reasonableness of central bankers, leading us from one crisis to another. The ECB can do nothing about the deepening recession in Germany. An Argentinean who is going against the tide, a showman whom all the Western media despised a year ago and predicted his quick downfall, has succeeded. Against all odds. Though he is on the side of Ukraine and Israel in their conflicts, though he speaks out against the BRICS, Venezuela, Iran, Russia and China, nonetheless he argues against woke culture and all left-wing ideas for social transformation. Note that he was the first head of state Donald Trump met with (informally) after his election. While Trump is a protectionist who will try to control the US market with administrative measures, Milei is an opponent of liberalism and open markets. After 20 years of socialist government in Argentina, came a man who keeps his promises: he is putting an end to socialism and its failed ideas. First in the economy, then in all areas of life. One man, one word.

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