Translated from Fraza.ua.

Not a single one of local Orthodox Churches has sent her greetings to the “unifying council”, and the Orthodox Church in Ukraine (OCU) that was formed there. Meanwhile, as the journalists from Fraza found out, the OCU was recognised by the US State Department, the LGBT community, and the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church (what I call “Uniates“). The Vatican has at first recognised the Church but then refused to recognise it.

Expert on religions, Alexandr Voznesensky wrote that the LGBT community recommends the newly-formed “unified Church” under the leadership of Epiphanius. The expert added: “This is what I understand as World recognition. After this, recognition of local Churches is not needed.”

TASS reports that in the opinion of the Deputy Spokesperson under the leadership of the 70th Secretary of State, Mark Pompeo, Robert Palladino, “the creation of this Church is a historic event for Ukraine.” He greeted, in the name of United States, the head of OCU, “metropolitan” Epiphanius with being elected.

Today (the article was published on 18 of December 2018), the press secretary of OCU, Eustratius (Zorya) announced that a report, which has appeared on the Vatican website, which spoke about the election of Epiphanius, de facto means the Pope has recognised has recognised the Church. He wrote: “It is de facto a sign, that in accordance with the order of  the ecumenical dialogue with the Orthodox Churches, by the power of the canonical recognition by the Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew of the Ukrainian Church and her Metropolitan, this Church acquired subjectness in the eyes of Rome.”

However, Zorya’s joy was premature. As it turned out, Vatican’s official portal did not recognise Epiphanius. This was announced on 18 December at the directorate of the Holy See’s press service.

The head of Ukrainian Greek Catholics (UGCC), Svyatoslav also sent greetings to supporters of the OCU in connection with the “unification council” and the election of a new representative. This was announced by the head of the pastoral service in Ukraine’s penitentiary system of the Patriarchal curia of the UGCC, Konstantin Pateley, on his Facebook page.

Dear readers, never mind the title. This is a post for a friend in Kiev that I Skype with, and this was a subject of our last talk. I hope the rest of you will enjoy it as well, although this will be familiar to some readers from Russia-Ukraine debates on Anatoly Karlin’s blog.

I was telling him about maps based on the 2001 census (Ukraine did not conduct a census for 18 years now), which eerily seem to copy Russia’s 2014 territorial acquisitions, official (Crimea), and unofficial (Donbass Republics). The map shows Russia only took the areas where the “Russian cultural element” was predominant, places where people identified themselves as ethnic Russians, and their native language as Russian. I provide translation underneath the pictures. You can also see that in the Donbass, the Russian element appears weaker than in Crimea. Maybe it is this what Zatulin means when he says that the people of Donbass are not Russian enough? But it would have been better if he kept his autistic opinions to himself.

Anyway, Here is what I meant when I said Russia’s territorial interests in Ukraine appear “ethnically motivated.”

…

Even in Western Ukraine…

What you see to your right is a page from the Ruska Chitanka, in translation “Russian Reader” edited by Vasily Kovalsky. It has been circulating around Ukrainian nationalist Twitter pages, and the name caught my eye. It was published in Vienna in 1852. Kovalsky was a professor at Lvov university, and the book was likely intended to teach literacy to school children.

What it show is that in 1850s, the people in Western Ukraine did not think of themselves as Ukrainians. In fact, many did not think of themselves as Ukrainians all the way into the first half of the twentieth century. A town in Western Ukraine is still named Rava Ruska, which reminds us of those days.

So what happened? Nationalism happened! Somewhere in the latter part of the nineteenth century, activists in Western Ukraine adopted the ethnomyn “Ukrainian”, which was invented by Polish intellectuals. And thus, Ukrainian nationalism began.

I have another book on my shelf, it is called Obrazy z Rus, that is “Images of the Russias”, written by the Czech nationalist Karel Havlíček Borovský. Russias is in the plural because the author means: “Little, Greater, and White Russia”. He clearly doesn’t see a difference in ethnicity between the inhabitants of these lands. In his discussion of Russian culture, he goes into a lengthy description of a Little Russian Cossack, and does not make a difference between his behaviour and the behaviour of people in Greater Russia.

Therefore, Ukrainian nationalism is an ideology, which seeks to alienate an invented community called Ukrainians from their kin. The Ukrainian nation is literally little more than 100 years old. Therefore, when we talk about Ukrainian history, it is this story of how Ukrainians came into being that ought to be the main topic. Any pretences to the history of Medieval Rus’, the Cossacks, the Haydamaks are but historical usurpations.

Couldn’t The Romania Journal find a better photo of USS Fort McHenry? Or perhaps use a little Photoshop? I have real doubts about NATO’s ability do defend Eastern Europe from Russian Aggression in case of an actual conflict now…

But then again, I never trusted in the ability of NATO countries to mount an effective defence.

Every time the Poroshenko administration does something to alienate his country from Russia, he utters words that have now become a meme. In English they sound like: “I once again say goodbye to the Russian Empire.” And every time he says good bye, some hack declares “Putin, Russia, Russia’s imperialist ghost  has lost” Ukraine. The problem is, Russia doesn’t own Ukraine and did not since 1991. Hence the Russians had limited influence over Ukraine. And even if I think Russia could be more active in dealing with Ukraine before 2014, it is questionable whether Russia would have won this fight against the West.

Basically, Ukraine as it exists now is virtually useless to Russia. Crimea is Russia, forever. The Nord Stream 2 will be constructed soon enough. Any resources can easily be bought from the Ukrainian oligarchs. Russia also accepts immigrants from Ukraine. Since Ukraine, already under Yanukovych, refused to join a grain cartel proposed by Russia, Ukraine has become a competitor to Russia in the agricultural sphere.

Russia does not need an agricultural superpower with Russophobic hillbillies. We have seen the capability of Ukraine to wage war in the cauldrons of Donbas and the strait of Kerch. But look on the map, Russia and Ukraine are part of one geographical space. One day hopefully the government in Ukraine will change. And until then, we will have the current situation, until Ukraine basically comes to her senses.