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On October 17, 2018, a student at a technical college in the Crimean city of Kerch carried out a Columbine-style rampage attack. He committed suicide at the end of his attack. He killed 20 people and wounded 70 more, many of them severely. I will not mention his name. It is included in the excerpt below. There are very restrictive gun control laws in place in Crimea.The murderer legally obtained a shotgun by performing all that was required, including a medical exam, and joining a local gun club. He purchased 150 rounds of ammunition a month before the attack. In...

Four angels and the Virgin Mary mark the spot where the Communist used to stand. “We used to get drunk next to the Lenin,” a 45-year-old mechanic named Volodymyr said as he passed by. “Now it’s a sin to drink there, I guess,” his friend Yulia said. Five years after the start of Ukraine’s pro-Western revolution, the once-ubiquitous figure of Vladimir Lenin has been eradicated by law. So have other symbols of the Soviet era — gone from the country’s squares, streets and buildings. But Ukrainians are still searching for meaning — and identity — in the spaces left behind....

Ecumenical expert says implications of decision are yet to be seen.The implications for Catholic-Orthodox dialogue, following the Russian Orthodox Church’s decision to withdraw from it, remain to be seen, said a Catholic member of the dialogue commission. Monsignor Paul McPartlan, the Carl J. Peter Professor of Systematic Theology and Ecumenism at the School of Theology and Religious Studies of the Catholic University of America, confirmed Wednesday that the Russian Orthodox have decided to suspend their participation in the Joint International Commission for Theological Dialogue between the Roman Catholic Church and the Orthodox Church. Monsignor McPartlan said a meeting of the...

Russia, through its 2014 invasion of Ukraine and its attempted annexation of Crimea, sought to undermine a bedrock international principle shared by democratic states: that no country can change the borders of another by force. The states of the world, including Russia, agreed to this principle in the United Nations Charter, pledging to refrain from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state. This fundamental principle — which was reaffirmed in the Helsinki Final Act — constitutes one of the foundations upon which our shared security and safety rests. As we did...

War continues to ravage eastern Ukraine, where conflict erupted in April 2014 following Russia’s annexation of Crimea and the violent actions of pro-Russian separatists. Along with forcing at least 1.6 million people from their homes, the ongoing conflict has also resulted in the persecution of Protestant pastors and churches throughout the territories that are occupied by pro-Russian separatist groups. One such group is the Luhansk People’s Republic (LNR), which is located in Ukraine’s Luhansk region and declared independence in May 2014. While the international community does not recognize the LNR as a legitimate state, this group’s totalitarian power is growing....

You are so precious to Me I wait in The Garden for you excited at the first glimpse of our friendship about to be renewed afresh for you have captured My Heart and I am swooned and overtaken by your love for me each and every time we meet and you understand that I even come to you in the form of others dressed in My Righteousness ; True worshippers , God chasers, My True Beloved ones for all they desire is more of me however I decide to appear. So now as you receive me in this way I...

Russian-backed rebels in Ukraine's Luhansk region have been cracking down on Protestant Christianity by raiding churches, dispersing worshipers, and preventing re-registration. There have been several instances of Protestant churches being raided in the past few months. Armed rebels raided a Baptist church in Brianka late in September, while the pastor of Krasny Luch Baptist church is facing possible punishment for allowing Sunday morning worship without registration. Twelve police officers shut down the Sunday morning meeting at Revival Baptist Church, telling the 25 worshipers gathered to go home. Several of them were questioned, however, while Pastor Dmitry Sirbu was forced to...

Russian President Vladimir Putin has claimed that the attack on Kerch Technical College, and the deaths by now of 21 people, most of them teenagers, was the result of ‘globalization.' It is not a view shared by many people who have watched with concern the mounting militarization of Crimean society in general, and children in particular, under Russian occupation. While we do not know, and perhaps never will, what went on in the head of 18-year-old Vladislav Roslyakov before he went on his killing rampage, the atmosphere in Crimea and the attitude to war and weapons have certainly changed alarmingly...

"It all started with the tragic events in the United States, in the schools of the United States," Vladimir Putin told the Valdai discussion forum in Sochi in southern Russia. As Russians struggle to come to terms with a horrific US-style school shooting in Crimea, which has left at least 20 people dead and dozens injured, Kremlin-controlled media are blaming the "corrupting influence" of the West for inspiring the attack. This person was under the strong influence of Western subculture," said Sergey Mikheyev, a political analyst speaking on a nightly current-affairs show on Russian state television. "Western subculture builds its...

At least 19 people were killed and dozens injured at a college in the Black Sea region of Crimea on Wednesday when a student went through the building shooting at fellow pupils before killing himself, Russian law enforcement officials said. Eighteen-year-old Vladislav Roslyakov turned up at the college in the city of Kerch on Wednesday afternoon carrying a firearm and then began shooting, investigators said. His body was later found in the college with what they said were self-inflicted gunshot wounds. There were no immediate clues as to his motive in mounting such an attack, which recalled similar shooting sprees...

MOSCOW — It would be one of the world’s more unusual direct flights. But bringing Syrian soldiers and civilians to a Black Sea resort is exactly what was on offer Tuesday, when a delegation from Crimea visited Damascus, the Syrian capital. “We understand that restrictions related to trade, money transfers and tourism are similar to what we have in Crimea,” said Prime Minister Sergei Aksyonov, Russia’s top official there. Both Syria and Crimea, which Russia annexed from Ukraine four years ago, have been hit by Western sanctions, and their economies are struggling. “We should turn our minuses into our advantages,”...

At least 17 people, mostly teenagers, were killed and 50 more wounded when a student went on a shooting spree in his high school in Russia-annexed Crimea on Wednesday, Russian authorities said. Russian investigators identified 18-year-old Vladislav Roslyakov as the attacker, saying he fatally shot himself after the rampage in Kerch, a city in the east of Crimea, which Russia seized from Ukraine four years ago. Reports had initially described the attack as involving explosives with possibly terrorist motives. Russian investigators had initially opened a terrorism probe into the attack, but later changed it to murder. “A preliminary examination of...

Details about the mishap are still limited, but a Su-27UB Flanker combat jet from Ukraine's Air Force has crashed in that country, killing its Ukrainian pilot, as well as reportedly a member of the U.S. Air National Guard. The jet had been flying a training sortie as part of Exercise Clear Sky 2018, which began on Oct. 8, 2018. The accident occurred at around 5:00 PM local time on Oct. 16, 2018, near the village of Ulaniv, which is situated approximately 185 miles southwest of the Ukranian capital Kiev. Ukraine's military immediately launched a search and rescue operation that unfortunately...

The humanitarian superpower Sweden has once again shown that it has no problem giving one vulnerable person preference over another when deciding whom to expel and who should be allowed to stay for humanitarian purposes. When Denis was only 5 years old, his mother was found dead in an apartment in Södertälje. As his Ukrainian father has renounced custody, he is now an orphan. Now the Swedish Migration Agency has decided that he will be expelled to Ukraine all by himself. There, he will probably end up in an orphanage since he has no family there who can take care...

The historic decision in Constantinople (Istanbul) at the synod of the Orthodox Church to grant Ukraine autocephaly (independence) from the Russian Orthodox church has geopolitical ramifications for Europe. Russia's control over religious life was the last vestige of soft power Russian president Vladimir Putin exercised over Ukraine. Putin's annexation of the Crimea and military aggression against eastern Ukraine, where his occupation forces remain ensconced, produced the opposite to his intention of clawing back what he considers to be a rebellious 'Russian' province that belongs in the 'Russian world'. Instead, over the last four years, Russian soft power has disintegrated in...

Israel and the United States sent a secret military delegation to Ukraine to test the Russian-made S-300 missile defense system, which Moscow recently provided to Syria, Hadashot TV news reported Monday, citing Syrian and Russian news outlets. There was no comment on the reports from either Israel or the US. According to the reports, members of the Ukrainian military instructed their US and Israeli counterparts on the capabilities of the system, as well as running through various possible scenarios. One Russian report said that F-15 planes are training in Ukraine against the S-300 as part of an international exercise that...

Statement by the Holy Synod of the Russian Orthodox Church concerning the encroachment of the Patriarchate of Constantinople on the canonical territory of the Russian Church With profound pain the Holy Synod of the Russian Orthodox Church has taken the report of the Patriarchate of Constantinople published on October 11, 2018, about the following decisions of the Holy Synod of the Patriarchate of Constantinople: confirming the intention ‘to grant autocephaly to the Ukrainian Church; opening a ‘stauropegion’ of the Patriarchate of Constantinople in Kiev; ‘restoring in the rank of bishop or priest’ the leaders of the Ukrainian schism and their...

Breaking- Minsk- Belarus: A statement published by the Holy Synod of the Russian Orthodox Church stated that it is impossible for the Russian Church to continue in Eucharistic Communion with the Patriarchate of Constantinople, reports Patriarchia.ru.

The Holy Synod of the Russian Orthodox Church has considered it impossible to remain in the Eucharistic communion with the Patriarchate of Constantinople The Holy Synod of the Russian Orthodox Church, at its session on October 15, 2019, in Minsk, adopted a Statement of the Holy Synod concerning the encroachment of the Patriarchate of Constantinople upon the canonical territory of the Russian Orthodox Church. The Holy Synod members deemed it impossible to continue to be in the Eucharistic communion with the Patriarchate of Constantinople. It is stated in particular that ‘to admit in communion the schismatics and a person anathematized...

The Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Kyiv Patriarchate has faced open attempts on the part of the occupation authorities in Crimea to drive it out of the peninsula or underground. In just the first year of the occupation, 38 out of 46 parishes ceased to exist, and in at very least three cases, churches were seized by the occupation regime: in Sevastopol; Simferopol and in the village of Perevalne. On October 9, Archbishop Klyment, the Head of the Church in Crimea, explained that up till now, the Russian occupation regime has been at least somewhat restrained in its offensive out...