Nikolai Karpitsky. April 28, 2022. Ukraine. Sixty-fourth day of war

The weather is sunny, warm. I’m writing to the sound of artillery cannonade. Ten days have already passed since the occupiers launched an active offensive in the Donbass. This is the hottest time. The fighting has reached an apogee, and the Russian command is burning its last reserves. So far, the attackers have a noticeable preponderance of forces. From the Izyum direction, they moved even closer to Barvenkovo, want to block the railway to Slavyansk. Kremennaya, Zarechnoye were captured from the Lugansk direction and now they are dangerously close to Liman. They are trying to capture Yampol to get to the rear of Slavyansk and Lysichansk at the same time. The enemy offensive is moving very slowly, not enough to achieve a decisive success, but the threat of the Russians getting close enough to Slavyansk and starting to shoot at us with artillery is quite real.

So far, Slavyansk has not been systematically shelled, although there are occasional hits in the city. The invaders are close enough to hit us with artillery, but the Ukrainian military does not allow this, they constantly maneuver and do not occupy any stationary positions. I already know about this not theoretically, but from the sounds of a cannonade - firing at enemies from our side is heard either very close, or very far away, while the invaders either not keeping pace or unable to retaliate, which is always assumed in artillery duels. As always, the tactics of the Russian offensive are suicidal. 

If from the very beginning of the invasion the entire blow fell on the Donbass, it would hardly have been possible to withstand. However, Russian troops began to attack in all directions at the same time and failed. 

Now a new offensive has begun in the Donbass, the logic goes that the enemy should have learned from mistakes. Nothing of this kind! Contrary to military science and common sense, he again launched an offensive in several directions simultaneously - on Zaporozhye, Krivoy Rog and Nikolaev. The result is an unprecedented increase in losses among the occupiers in recent days. Although heavy weapons still showed their worth here, the first batches of which were supplied to us by the allies.

The large-scale invasion of Ukraine is an act of suicide by Russia. And even now, when the Russian command has a chance to achieve local success, it still chooses from all options the one that is suicidal.  Whence such a craving for suicide, which is found at all levels? 

The fact is that any cultivation of death sooner or later gives rise to a suicidal tendency. A real cult of death developed in the Soviet Union: the coat of arms and other Soviet symbols were of a necrophilic nature, they composed songs and made films about heroic death and suicidal deeds. However, no propaganda can subjugate an individual, contrary to his or her free self-determination. I believe that neither upbringing, nor culture, nor nationality, nor beliefs, nor even one’s own thoughts define a person. Only in deeds does a person become who he is, because it is in deeds, and not in thoughts, that self-determination for good or for evil occurs.

Likewise, the future of a country is determined in free choice through the actions that its citizens take. Such an act for Russian citizens was the act of voting for Putin in 2000, when everyone knew that FSB agents were caught in an attempt to blow up a house in Ryazan. Everyone knew about this, but most did not want to accept this knowledge. However, not believing the facts is also a free choice. Having supported Putin, they agreed to the authorities, which physically killed them. I cannot interpret this otherwise than as a suicidal act, which was bound to lead to the suicide of the country. 

This finale was brought closer by the murder of its own citizens, and not only journalists and oppositionists (this can at least be explained by the logic of the political struggle), but random people. In particular, when the terrorists hijacked the planes, they were shot down along with the passengers, and when the school was seized, it was shot down along with the children. There are those who will say that there is a reason for this. After all, when the authorities demonstrated that they would destroy terrorists together with hostages, the attacks ceased. However, once you are in this position, you can't stop. Guided by this logic, Putin began to destroy entire cities, and now, in order to force the West to capitulate, he demonstrates that he is ready to use nuclear weapons, regardless of the victims from a retaliatory nuclear strike.

The whole world wonders how, in the twenty-first century, an entire country consented to its own suicide. In fact, not all Russians support the war with Ukraine, although a significant number do. First, these are people with a self-destructive complex who instinctively try to destroy their own lives and those of others, and secondly, those who once committed this suicidal act - supported Putin. However, most Russians are simply unable to accept reality, to acknowledge that the worst has already happened, so they do not want to hear anything about the war, hoping in vain to wake up from a nightmare. The third part of Russians understands everything and is horrified that their country has committed suicide. They see that there is no more future, and now it is not clear what to do. 

From the initial consent to the suicide of the country, when people voted for Putin in 2000, to the act of suicide in 2022, Russia received so much money from the export of raw materials that Mars could have been developed on them. However, Putin has made a titanic effort to dispose of the country's windfall profits, and now, with maniacal persistence, he is disposing of the Russian army in Ukraine. What is this but a manifestation of suicidal tendencies?

Now the world has realized that in the entire history of civilization, humankind has never been in such danger, when the use of nuclear weapons depends on the mental state of just one person obsessed with this idea. Therefore, the whole world has united against Russia the same way as it would have united in the face of an alien threat, since no one, except Putin's supporters, wants the suicide of humankind.

Nikolai Karpitsky. April 24, 2022. Ukraine. Sixtieth day of war

The battle for Donbass has been going on for several weeks and it's been a week since a new Russian offensive was launched. Last Monday began with the news that the occupiers had taken Kremennaya. While you are in the rear, you can theorize about the situation at the front, but when you yourself are in the front-line zone, there is no time, you need to orient yourself immediately, because life depends on it. They took Kremennaya, what's next? Will they come out to Liman and then start shelling us? Or will they take Rubezhnoe-Severodonetsk-Lysichansk into the ring? Or maybe the Ukrainian military simply retreated to more advantageous positions to make it easier to defend? On the first day, you don't understand anything. Who wins? What to fear? A day later, it became clear that the Ukrainian military was gradually retreating to pre-prepared lines and continuing to defend successfully.

I do not listen to Russian and all other media inclined to lie, even “for objectivity”, to “know a different point of view”. For a very simple reason - after dealing with someone who is prone to lie, I will know less than I did before communication. The problem is not the lack of information, but an overabundance of information noise that needs to be filtered out somehow. As well, I weed out analysts who, although they do not lie, and even conduct an honest analysis, however, sin by arbitrary generalizations that are later presented as truth. For example, if there are statements: “the Ukrainian army in the coming days will not hold Popasnaya and Rubezhnoe, partially taken by the Russian army”, you can not read further. Even if that’s true, the point here is something else, that this analyst values the construct in his own head more than reality itself. However, in reality, war is unpredictable, because it is impossible to take into account all the factors that affect the outcome of the battle.

In modern wars, it is not the number of troops that is decisive, but the supply of ammunition and fuel. The outcome of the battle can be decided by who runs out of shells first in some key area of the battle. Let's say you have a few dozen left, and the enemy no longer has them, and he retreats. Here, for some time, the opportunity opens up to go to the rear or cut the key supply line, and then the entire enemy defense line begins to crumble. It is impossible to foresee such occurrences. You can only analyze the situation that has developed at the moment.

Now it is raining, it is very difficult to advance, especially from the Izyum direction, because there are continuous ravines. Nevertheless, Russian troops are advancing, despite the losses. Their successes are insignificant, however, when they are thirty kilometers from us, every kilometer of advance is perceived with great anxiety. After all, if they deploy artillery near Slavyansk, they will demolish the city. So far, the Ukrainian troops do not allow them to do this, so only rockets reach Slavyansk. Although Kramatorsk suffers more from them, despite the fact that it is deeper in the rear.

Cannonade can be heard all week, even in the rain. Yesterday was especially intense. Easter night was also greeted with a siren. Among the attackers there are those who raped and killed children in Bucha. Therefore, no one has any illusions about what will happen if the invaders enter the city. But I don't think they will. There's a good chance of keeping them at bay until new weapons arrive. We just need to hold out for another week, maximum - two.

Today is Easter, the day of victory over death. However, Putin would not be Putin if he had not tried to kill someone for this holiday. Cultural consciousness is arranged in such a way that we symbolically correlate what is happening with samples from real or sacred history. Therefore, regardless of the attitude to religion, biblical associations still arise. In this regard, the killings by a rocket attack on Odessa before the Easter holiday are perceived as symbolic complicity in the execution of Jesus Christ. 

Which of the participants in this New Testament story can be likened to Putin? I think no one. At least among people. After all, all the accomplices in the crucifixion of Jesus Christ, they did not want his death, they simply acted according to circumstances. Unlike Putin, none of them wished death for the sake of death itself. Perhaps Putin is trying on the role of the one who tempted Christ? 

And what symbolic role have Russian church leaders - Sergey Ryakhovsky and Kirill Gundyaev - chosen for themselves in this holiday? I think that they placed themselves below the members of the Sanhedrin, who sentenced Jesus to death. For behind the cruel sentence was, though erroneous, yet still a good intention to save Jerusalem from destruction. And below the crowd, shouting: “Crucify!” for unlike the crowd they perfectly understand what they are doing. And even lower than Judas, who probably hoped that Jesus would not let himself be crucified and raise up a rebellion. When Judas realized he had made a mistake, he repented and hanged himself. These men have no hint of repentance. They can only be likened to those authoritative and well-behaved people in everyday life who encouraged the crowd to shout: “Crucify!” 

Having supported Putin, they became accomplices to his crimes. However, they had the opportunity to at least not spoil the Easter day. It was enough to support Pope Francis’s request for an Easter truce. They did not even dare to do this, and now the sacrifices made by Putin for the Easter holiday, including the death of a three-month-old girl in Odessa, are on their conscience as well.

 

Valentin Dyakonov. Art of the Necro-Empire. 21.04.2022

URL: Valentin Dyakonov. Art of the Necro-Empire // Arterritory. 21.04.2022. https://arterritory.com/en/visual_arts/articles/26102-art_of_the_necro-empire

Art of the Necro-Empire

Valentin Dyakonov

21.04.2022

The Party of the Dead against the Fatal Ideology

It takes a certain courage to dive into the coffin, scarlet and silky on the inside – but once you are there, you become pensive and remove yourself from life’s nervous polyrhythm. Its form is pacifying in its predictability. One snowy day last November, I stepped into the coffin and thus pledged allegiance to the Party of the Dead, the coffin’s owners and users, and currently one of the most active and alert art groups in Russia protesting the powers that be and the war in Ukraine. Since the war started, I found myself longing to return to the fake but sweet and temporary release of the funerary ritual. In today’s Russia, for all the people who question humanity’s competence in the art of living, a coffin is the place to be, emotionally.

Protest action by Party of the Dead

The Party of the Dead is discursively sculpted by Maxim Evstropov, a philosopher and noise musician from St Petersburg. In 2020 he outlined a platform for the collective in his endlessly quotable text “Party of the Dead: From Necrorealism to Necroactivism”, which was published in the Moscow Art Journal. Previously Evstropov had been part of the art collective {rodina} (“motherland”), which mocked the increasing isolationism of Russia with acts of subversive affirmation. During “For your safety” (2014), the members of the collective went to a gallery opening and tied everyone with rope, telling people to “keep calm” and remember that “all of this is for your own safety”. “Alas-parade” (2016) was a direct precursor to the Party of the Dead. Several members of {rodina} carried on their passage through the city of St Petersburg a number of pessimistic placards: “Let’s endure this”, “You may not outlive this regime”, and “Everybody’s dead, but some are deader”. The Party of the Dead has taken up the latter message and turned it into what Evstropov calls an “ethical-political program”. The slogans of the Party are more direct. “There are more dead [than living]” is key among them, which is a fact that Evstropov likes to quote in his texts and interviews — according to the latest scientific estimates, about 117 billion people have ever been born on Earth, vastly exceeding the number of those who are currently alive.

"Be alive, take care of our dead". Protest in front of the building of the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation by Party of the Dead / Moscow, spring 2022

Similar to {rodina}, the Party of the Dead started out as grotesque and darkly funny parodies of disciplinary strategies in school, the army, and the everyday, but is now retrospectively seen as “critical realism”, a truthful art of a certain era. Moreover, being an “ethical-political program”, it is incredibly effective in the present moment. Before February 24, our generation’s encounters with death mostly came down to the domestic sphere. Immediate relatives died of natural causes and accidents. That is what happened to Evstropov, too, who now says that the Party of the Dead is, in many ways, his trauma management. Being one of the clearest thinkers in contemporary Russia, he transformed his grief into an emancipatory act. Through the Party of the Dead’s incessant picketing, the political space we have found ourselves in is put in high relief.

There were wars waged by Russia in countries far away that employed what American sociologist Martin Shaw calls “risk-transfer militarism”. Somebody fought these wars and many people died, of course, but cultural workers were always just safe enough to discard the possibility of military employment as a means of economic survival. This is not so for many underprivileged parts of Russia, where compensations for war-related disabilities and death can make a family rich. Now, death is everywhere. Most Ukrainians hate it when Russians call them “brotherly people”, noticing that this formula is inherited from the Soviet Union’s patronizing hierarchy of “big” (Russia) and “little brothers” (all other Soviet republics). But Ukraine is a “brotherly”, “sisterly”, “motherly” – and many other instances of blood relations – nation to millions of Russians. It would be nice if every person in the world could invest in every global conflict with horror and activist energy. Some people do, but most have to know someone from the dying side first. The Party of the Dead has always opposed this postmortem nationalism. The dead are everywhere; they are the planet’s biggest and most diverse community. We all will be a part of it some day.

Protest action by Party of the Dead

More importantly, the dead are frequently exploited against their will for the purpose of talking points. “Politicians and priests always declare something in the name of the dead”, Evstropov wrote in the 2020 article. “They appropriate their voices to justify their own miserable present”. “Why not, then, say on their behalf something different – for example, that the state must perish, there is no God, and that every power must fall?”. Evstropov notes that the Party of the Dead was partly inspired by “The Immortal Regiment”, a grassroots movement from Tomsk, Siberia, that participated in Victory Day marches holding photographs of relatives killed in World War II. “The Immortal Regiment” was quickly appropriated by the authorities and turned into another instance of victim-building. In Russia, after their actual death, WWII veterans are conscripted into another army – the battalion led by bellicose politicians. They use the veterans and their heroic avatars, including the Unknown Soldier, to put forth a foreign policy agenda that justifies expansion and threats to other countries on the premise that Russia has a right to govern the lands where its soldiers have spilled their blood.

The Party of the Dead’s activities make this ideology of necro-imperialism clearly visible. It is no coincidence that their demonstrations and actions sometimes look like medieval Europe’s answer to calamity. These are dances of death, a subject for the arts since the first cases of animated side-effects from the plague were recorded. What Russia is going through is a different kind of sickness, though. Namely, the Brown Plague, a term that was coined by gay French reporter Daniel Guérin during his travels through Germany in 1932-1933, and used by Soviet publicists extensively since the end of the WWII without referencing either the source or the sexuality of the author. Evstropov has long observed “the fascist aggregation of a strange collective body” in Russian public politics. He remembers his shock when, after 2014, a rift opened between the formerly united opposition forces. Many of his friends in the experimental music scene thought that the annexation of Crimea was fair and became supporters of the regime. Evstropov explains this as a sort of psychological compensation mechanism. People felt that they had no future. The dead have no future. Why bother fighting? Is there any other way than to join the Necro-Empire’s army? You’re still dead, but at least you have a career.

Feminist Anti-War Movement / action “Mariupol 5000”

And since 2014, the army has been growing fast. Among its military units, the Necro-Empire has formed a regiment of dead male authorities that fight queer theory, gender fluidity, and other talking points of American conservative broadcasting. Hegel and Gogol are mentioned in articles by pundits as examples of “real” culture, as opposed to “fake liberal values”. Moreover, everyone who fears social death in an increasingly diverse culture is welcome to join the Necro-Empire’s army. If you are a soldier, you can help yourself to a ration of free speech and reminisce about “the good old times” when women and minorities knew their place. The Necro-Empire is truly international and attracts many allies to its morbid cause. But their shared objective is not unity but creation of isolated and self-reliant worlds for the French, the Americans, the Hindus, etc. The Party of the Dead aligns itself with most of the emancipatory projects of today, including the feminist and the post-colonial, but “shifts the logic of freedom by bringing it to its logical conclusion”, as Evstropov wrote in 2020. It fights the Necro-Empire’s “pyramids” of decorated dead with empathy towards all who perished. “The choices of possible action look like this: 1) to become a “carrier” for the dead, hospitable to ghosts; 2) to live in death and with the dead; 3) to die, become and be dead”, Evstropov elaborates. It all sounds like the work of historians, philosophers, and critical and creative thought in general. We must listen to the dead with utmost attention, but what can they possibly talk about? “They all say everything and at once”, he writes, “Their words are a background to our existence”. That is why there is also a transgressive element to the dead, and not only because they lie beyond the path of the living. Here, according to Evstropov’s sketchy proposal outlined in an unpublished talk, to think of the “queerness of the dead” relates to Ukrainian artist Nikita Kadan’s “mass grave queer”, where bodies are entwined in a final embrace.

In his interview for the now-blocked website Sibir.Realii, Evstropov sums up the Necro-Empire’s grip on Russian society: “The dead are not allowed to be dead. And those who are living are not allowing themselves to be alive”. In life, The Party of the Dead emancipates people from a fearful existence and provides a space in which to act as representatives of a diverse majority, silent but not voiceless. To enter the Party of the Dead is liberating in other ways, too: the guilt and shame that Russians in the opposition feel are signifiers of powerlessness. Those who have thought that their joys and life-sharing activities in charity, education, and volunteering advance Russia towards a more just and open society have discovered that the root of all pleasure is the absence of fear. To act as if you’re dead means to be open to a multitude of futures, as outlined in Stoic philosopher Epictetus’ “The Art of Living”: “I must die. If the time is now, then I’m ready. If not now, but after a short time, I’ll have something to eat because it’s the lunch hour. After that, I’ll die. How? Like a man who gives up what belongs to another”. 

An anonymous collective “Nevoina” (“Notwar”) / action “Giving Voice to the Dead”

Of course, the Party of the Dead is only one of the alternatives to the Necro-Empire's ideology. In Samara, an anonymous collective that goes by the name “Nevoina” (“Notwar”) orchestrated “Giving Voice to the Dead”, an action that took place on February 28 in which 26 people lay on the snow in black plastic bags. After the killings in Kyiv’s satellite town of Bucha became public, a number of anonymous activists recreated the poses of the victims in the streets of Moscow and Kransodar. It also stands to reason that the feminist and queer initiatives are very powerful and articulate at the moment. They were quick to point out that the war is a direct consequence of the increasingly violent male domination in Russian society. People who shed blood once a month stand against people who draw blood at will in bouts of patriarchal violence at home and in the street. People who care stand against people who dismiss feelings that betray even trace amounts of weakness. One of the most remarkable images from the nationwide protest on March 6 was a video of an unknown protester glitter-bombing police officers who apprehended him – a tactic that references American actions against politicians who oppose gay rights.

Feminist Anti-War Movement / action “Mariupol 5000”

Feminist Anti-War Movement, founded by Daria Serenko, one of the staunchest critics of the regime, was one of the first collective efforts to fight military aggression. In their action titled “Mariupol 5000” they have called on everyone who opposes the war to install makeshift crosses in their cities with tablets that reference the Russian bombings of the Ukrainian city, an attack that has left almost 5000 dead. “Women in Black”, another Feminist action, resulted in thousands of activists standing in individual pickets with flowers in their hands, mourning for the casualties of war – a direct reference to the original action by Israeli women protesting Israel’s military crimes in Palestine. The Russian version is documented in photographs and Katya Muromtseva’s stark watercolors that transform the original images into an alphabet of protest. The faces are either erased, cut out of the frame, or camouflaged: if you have no features, you remain nameless and invisible to the Necro-Empire but still get the message out.

Katya Muromtseva. Action “Women in Black”

The Necro-Empire is this historical period’s tipping point, a collection of complex entanglements of resentment, fear, and powerlessness of the abandoned that begets violence. Unlike the Soviet Union, which saw itself as a modernizer, the Necro-Empire has no features of effectiveness that can be disguised as a gift to an underdeveloped community. It comes with no system of governing that can be seen as a working alternative to the state dynamics Ukraine is heading towards. The official propaganda is using a lot of deeply cynical reasoning to justify the war. But even the most blood-thirsty pundits are not saying that Russia is about to install a more advanced infrastructure and/or bureaucracy. “Ukraine does not exist”, openly says the Necro-Empire through one of its Presidents, and then proceeds to prove the lie by murder. Death is this empire’s only casus belli. Silence is the Necro-Empire’s only capital, and our shares are morally and economically cancelled.

“Russian spring snowdrops”, installation by Party of the Dead / Petersburg, March 2022

Nikolai Karpitsky. April 17, 2022. Ukraine. Fifty-third day of war

Today is Sunday. One half of the Church celebrates Easter - the day of the resurrection of Jesus Christ. Next Sunday the other half of the Church will celebrate it. For Christians, it is the major celebration of victory over death, which opened the way to salvation. For everyone else, it's just a celebration of the idea of the triumph of life. And what could be the opposite of the idea of the victory of life over death? Only the idea of the priority of death in any situation of choice, that is, necrophilia. In this regard, I wondered what drives Putin and his supporters more: imperialism or necrophilia?

For the second week now, military analysts have been promising that Russia will gather its fist and launch an offensive on Slavyansk and Barvenkovo. In fact, the offensive has been going on for a long time, but skillful counterattacks of the Ukrainian military prevent the invaders from gathering a single fist. Intense battles do not stop, the cannonade is constantly heard here. The enemy is not far from us, he could well shell Slavyansk with long-range artillery, but the Ukrainian defenders do not allow him to deploy.

The invaders are constantly bringing up fresh forces, and it is very likely that at some point Slavyansk and Kramatorsk will be systematically destroyed. Therefore, the evacuation was announced. We can assume that its first stage has ended: those who decided to leave - left, and those who decided to stay - stayed. This can be seen from the fact that there are fewer people on the streets. There were relatively few of them in сhurch Good News today, with more than two-thirds of them being men.

As I returned home, the siren was blaring and there were explosions. One of them was even somewhere nearby. Passers-by did not react to them in any way, and this is logical. After all, if it is possible to predict where they will shoot from, then it makes sense to hide, and if this is not possible, what is the point of worrying and fussing? I went to the supermarket. There were few people, half the shelves were empty, but the most necessary products were there, and hunger does not threaten. I bought apples, and when I got out, the siren was already dead. Then the cannonade was heard again, but somewhere quite far away.

Putin can still destroy several cities, but it is obvious to everyone that he has lost the war, and from the point of view of a normal person, it is pointless to continue it.

However, all attempts to calculate the actions of the Russian authorities failed because they think differently, not like normal people. All the Star Trek aliens - Klingons, Romulans, Ferengi, and others - are far more understandable and humane than the Russian imperialists. From the standpoint of common sense, it is illogical to attack Ukraine. Here lives a peaceful country, trying to maintain friendly relations with everyone. Why conquer it? There is no economic benefit. It is impossible to subjugate it. Even if a pro-Russian government can be imposed by force, the people will overthrow it after a while. 

Let’s assume, for some irrational reasons, people consider the extension of Russia’s borders to be the meaning of their lives. Not for any good, but for nothing. There are super-valuable ideas, such as building communism or the Third Reich, for the sake of which ideological adherents are ready to kill millions of people. But then I have another question.

If the murders in Ukraine were aimed at its occupation and subjugation to Russia, why were the massacres without any specific purpose, as was the case, for example, in Borodyanka? 

The assault on Kyiv can be explained by the strategy of conquest. However, Borodyanka is a peaceful city, there were no military facilities. Nevertheless, the occupiers bombed multi-storey buildings with super-heavy aerial bombs, turning them into mass graves. Those who did not have time to hide in the cellars died immediately, and those who did, died long and painfully. People who were trying to clear the rubble were shot. The destruction of Borodyanka can no longer be explained by the imperial position, this is a manifestation of necrophilia in its purest form.

In 2016, I was in the front-line village Opytnoye, which is near the Donetsk airport. The village was shelled constantly even during a lull. Not a single house was left intact there, and people were forced to live in basements. Artillery shells can destroy an entire apartment, but not an entire house, so the basement was safe. After all, then the invaders had not yet used aviation.

Now people are in much greater danger, as there is no rescue from a super-heavy aerial bomb in the basement. The other day, such super-heavy bombs were used to destroy multi-storey buildings in Bolshaya Kamyshevakha near Izyum to the ground. Only good air defense can save Slavyansk from such a bombardment. We'll see how it goes.

Putin’s decision to attack Ukraine can still be explained by imperial motivation and inadequate perception of reality. But how to explain his decision to continue the war when it is already lost? Here is the answer to the question above. Now there is only one driving force behind the war - necrophilia. Accordingly, all those who continue to support or justify Russia's war against Ukraine are necrophiliacs.

From a Christian position, necrophilia as an antithesis to the resurrection of Jesus Christ is anti-Christianity in the literal sense. Accordingly, those religious leaders who supported Putin's actions in Ukraine, such as Pentecostal chairman of ROSHVE (Russian United Union of Christians of Evangelical Faith) Sergei Ryakhovsky and the Patriarch of the Russian Orthodox Church, Kirill, are not just heretics, but anti-Christians.

I foresee the objection that they are not necrophiliacs, but simply victims of propaganda, deceived by lies about Ukrainian Nazis. Of course, it happens that people are deceived by propaganda and fakes, but even then people retain the ability to doubt and when meeting with eyewitnesses, they try to figure out how things really are. There can’t be any claims to such people. We are talking about people of a different kind, those who unequivocally reproduce propaganda clichés without the slightest desire to know anything. They believe propaganda not because they’ve been deceived, but because they want to believe it. They do not test the veracity with facts or arguments, but with correspondence to the picture of the world in which the entire civilized world is hostile and should be destroyed. They voluntarily agreed to this picture of the world, and this consent is the very necrophilic act that gives reason to consider those who justify or support the war against Ukraine as necrophiles.

Nikolai Karpitsky. April 11, 2022. Ukraine. Forty-seventh day of war

Yesterday I saw how Slavyansk has changed in a week after the announced evacuation. Despite the good weather, there are much fewer people. During a sermon, the pastor at Good News Church urged anyone who was still hesitant to leave. Unfortunately, the railroad tracks are being shelled, and traveling by train is no longer as safe as it used to be. Therefore, the church takes its members by bus from Slavyansk to fellow believers in Ternopil, and at the same time evacuates the inhabitants of Lysichansk, Severodonetsk and Popasnaya on a daily basis. Getting people out of Rubezhnoe is almost impossible.

Intense battles were going on all week near Slavyansk, cannonade was constantly heard. The first echelon of the occupiers has been stuck for a week somewhere in the distance of 30 kilometers and cannot move any further. But the second echelon is on its way - troops from the Far East, the last combat-ready reserves, are arriving. If something happens in the Caucasus, on the border with China or Afghanistan, Russia now has nothing as a defense. It will be harder for us to fight off the second echelon; temporary success of the enemy is possible, but soon the rains will begin and the Russian army will get bogged down. Yesterday the first green sprouts appeared on the trees, and today they have already blossomed. This means that in just a few days it will be possible to get close to enemy positions unnoticed. In order to bring the units that fled from Kyiv and Chernigov into combat readiness, the invaders will need a lot of time, because the third echelon will enter the battle when it is already too late to attack. The occupiers will need a lot of time to bring the units that had fled from around Kyiv and Chernigov into combat readiness, so the third echelon will enter the battle when it is too late to attack.

According to the adviser to the head of the presidential office A. Arestovich, the Ukrainian army is on the defensive, struggling to hold back the many times superior forces. There are no forces for the liberation counter-offensive, and after the hot phase a long protracted war is ahead. Therefore, it is better to immediately agree on Russia's return to the old DPR/LPR borders, which can be considered a crushing victory. However, the negotiations are negotiations, but I do not believe that the Ukrainian society will agree to the conclusion of peace when Russia withdraws to the borders of February 23, 2022. After the atrocities in Bucha, it is unbearable to think that Donetsk, Lugansk and other Ukrainian cities, which have been suffering under occupation for eight years, will not be liberated. Ordinary people will see this not as a crushing victory, but as a defeat. 

In fact, the situation looks somewhat different. The Ukrainian army does not stand on the defensive, but is waging an active maneuver war. This is neither a defense nor an offensive, but a third type of military action, which can be called Makhno tactics after Nestor Makhno. Such tactics allow to destroy the enemy despite his military superiority both on one’s own territory, when he advances and in his rear, when he defends. Arestovich is right that if the Ukrainian army, imitating the Russian one, starts storming Donetsk with columns of armored vehicles, it will suffer monstrous losses.

However, nobody is going to fight like that. I think within a month, Ukrainian troops will grind the second and third echelons of the Russian offensive against Slavyansk and Barvenkovo, and then transfer the fighting to the rear of the enemy. No one will stop at the administrative borders of the DPR/LPR. Or rather, no one will be able to stop the mobile Ukrainian units that will bypass the cities, cut off communications, destroy supplies, retreat in danger and make new surprise raids until the enemy flees, as it was near Kyiv. 

If Putin now withdrew all troops to the old DPR/LPR borders and bit into the defenses, he could have held on there. But he needs victory at any cost, and so he will not rest until he destroys all his reserves in a suicidal attempt to encircle and destroy the Donbass group. However, the only thing in his power is to present as a gift to his supporters by May 9 the destruction of the cities of Donbass, which he is already shelling with missiles. Therefore, the evacuation was announced. The main thing is to save people. Then, after the ninth of May, everyone will be able to return.

There are reports from liberated towns and villages that people have been found tied up everywhere, with signs of torture and a bullet in the back of their heads. This means that the special services were given a plan to shoot civilians, just as in 1937 NKVD was sent down a plan to arrest enemies of the people. Only now is worse than 1937, because the systematic terror of the secret services is superimposed by the chaotic terror of the military. In terms of cruelty, this is already approaching the Red Terror of the Civil War.

The Putin regime is the heir to the Cheka-NKVD-KGB system. What is called the October Revolution was actually a putsch, after which the Bolsheviks occupied Russia, and then Ukraine and other countries. They were not revolutionaries at all, but occupiers. Of course, they used in their ideology the archaic idea of collecting lands. This idea underlies the aggressive wars of the Russian Empire, but with the advent of a new era, it should have remained in the past, like, for example, the idea of the Ottoman Empire or the Arab Caliphate. The Bolsheviks revived it, transforming it to fit their ideology.

 

However, the Bolsheviks are a dragon with two heads. One head is the party, the other is the special services. During the 1991 revolution, only one head was cut off, the second survived. This led to a military-chekist coup in 1999 and the establishment of the Putin regime, which, despite the massive support of local residents - collaborators, still retains its occupational character. It follows that the atrocities of the Russian invaders on Ukrainian territory will sooner or later spread to the territory of Russia. First, there will be more reports of rape and murder of children, then it will become clear that the kidnappings and murders of oppositionists are not isolated, but planned. If Putin stays in power, he will first bring back 1937, and then 1918. Therefore, Russians need to get rid of the illusion that at least part of the old quiet life can be preserved. Armageddon has already come, and it is now impossible to dodge the choice between the forces of good and evil. 

Nikolai Karpitsky. April 8, 2022. Ukraine. Forty-fourth day of the war

In the morning, aircraft were buzzing over my house, then it was reported that an air strike had been carried out on the railway in the Barvenkovo area, blocking three trains from Slavyansk for some time. If the occupiers break into Barvenkovo, they can fire artillery directly at my house, and then I have to get out of the line of fire somehow. While I was writing down these lines, there were two loud explosions. After a while, Alexander Palchenko arrived with his wife. Already on the way, they received a call with the news that two rockets hit the Kramatorsk railway station, just when people were waiting for the evacuation train. Over three dozen dead, over a hundred wounded. Putin wants to get a territory without people, for this he carries out genocide in the occupied territories. The desire to disrupt the evacuation can only be explained by necrophilia. I think these strikes are just the beginning. By May 9, Putin will try to present a gift to his electorate - to destroy all the cities of Donbass that he fails to capture.

Now the invaders are trying to encircle the Donbass group at any cost, and the main offensive is coming from Izyum to Slavyansk and Barvenkovo. In this area, the occupiers have an advantage, but it is extremely difficult to advance along the Izyum road to Slavyansk. The enemy has nowhere to maneuver, while he is constantly under attack by Ukrainian defenders. Advancing on Barvenkovo means exposing the army to attack from the Dnieper, but this consideration will not stop the occupiers. 

They need additional reserves, but it takes more than a month to bring the battered units from near Kyiv and Chernigov to combat readiness. Putin cannot wait that long, he demands an immediate victory, and this gives us a chance to destroy the enemy piece by piece. Although the price for victory will be high, because we’ll have to withstand intense shelling of cities.

But I had another thought now. The Russian deputies voted for the recognition of the independence of the DPR and LPR, and thus denied the residents of Donetsk and Luhansk the right to return to their homes. It also means that they voted to take my house in Slavyansk or bomb it and banish or kill me. Not everyone supported this decision in Russia, but many, mostly lumpens, who cynically ask me: “What were you doing for eight years when Donetsk was bombed?” I answer them: “I went to the front line and talked about people from whom Russia stole a peaceful life. But I have a counter question: What have you done in eight years for Russia to withdraw its troops from Donetsk and return peaceful life to the people?”

Of course, they are deeply indifferent to the fate of the inhabitants of Donetsk, they only care about the fact that Russia continues to collect lands, even at the cost of destroying their inhabitants. At school, in history classes, we were given the idea of land collection as a special mission of Russia, and we accepted it by default.

Now I experience myself what people felt when their houses and lands were taken from them, denying their right to an independent existence. But even this idea of land collection has now drastically mutated. At school, we were taught that collecting lands is a blessing for peoples who, although they did not have independent value in themselves, were not considered enemies. However, now in Russia they teach that the whole world outside Russia’s sphere of influence is a metaphysical evil subject to be destroyed. That is why Russian troops shoot people who are trying to evacuate, because for them civilians are also enemies.

This ideology of land collection in Putin’s interpretation has finally acquired a necrophilic and satanic character, therefore it should be prohibited in the same way as the Nazi ideology of the Third Reich. Moreover, sanctions cannot be lifted from Russia until three conditions are met: abandoning the ideology of land collection, including the revision of all Russian history textbooks, the transfer of control over law enforcement agencies to a federal body composed of representatives of regional authorities, and the punishment of all participants and propagandists of the war against Ukraine. To make this possible, the bearers of the ideology of land gathering must be defeated here in the battle for the Donbass.

On the basis of the mutated idea of land collection, a picture of the world has been constructed that concentrates the destructive energy of hatred. The defenders of Ukraine proceed from a different picture of the world, in which Ukraine is identified not with the vertical of power, but with home, loved ones, friends and relatives. This understanding gives them the creative energy to fight the invaders.

Every picture of the world is characterized not only by the inner integrity, flexibility and adequacy of life, but also by strength, that is, the ability to mobilize the energy of its carriers. The demonic picture of the land-gathering world concentrates a huge energy of hatred, but this energy suppresses free will, which indicates its falsity. Therefore, on the battlefield, the Russian military is not able to take the initiative, following suicidal orders. The picture of the world of the defenders of Ukraine concentrates the creative energy of the life of ordinary people. This encourages them to act decisively and proactively despite the multiple superiority of the enemy. Therefore, now the strength of the worldview is becoming a decisive factor in the battle for Donbass.

Nikolai Karpitsky. April 6, 2022. Ukraine. Forty-second day of war

It was quiet today, but last night I woke up from missile explosions, but immediately fell asleep again. As it turned out, the invaders fired three missiles into Kramatorsk, two were shot down in the air, and one fell into the city. Then the news came that the enemy had made some progress in our direction and now it is already between the villages of Brazhovka and Suligovka.

There came a time when the cannonade began to calm me down. I can already distinguish by ear when ours beat the occupiers. Judging by how it was heard yesterday, the fighting on the way to Slavyansk is desperate. The enemy is now somewhere near Svyatogorsk. I seem to have hurried to write that it is now quiet. Artillery is heard again, but this time far away, and it calms. After the footage from Bucha it is now clear to everyone that the occupiers will not only kill, but also torture. The mayor of Slavyansk called for the evacuation of children, women and the elderly first. I think the risk of shelling Slavyansk is significant, but still the city will still not be taken. Although, if the enemy manages to break through to Barvenkovo, our area will be the first under fire. However, in reality, everything is not that bad. An inadequate Fuhrer demands an immediate victory and forces the command to throw reserves into battle as soon as they are brought to Izyum. Thanks to this, the defenders of Slavyansk grind them piece by piece. Although they are in the minority, they fight more skillfully, and I trust them in this.

After the massacre in Bucha, people ask themselves: who was capable of this and is there any hope for a just retribution? If you work consistently, it is quite possible to identify all the participants of the massacre in Bucha and other Ukrainian cities. Here we must take into account that terror has been perpetrated in different forms by different groups. 

1. Organized terror of the special services. Their task is to identify and destroy public figures, politicians or simply reputable people who offer moral resistance to the occupiers. In other words, to account for the financing and ensure promotion in service with the blood of people declared «Nazis». They could have refused a trip to Ukraine, so everyone is guilty of the massacre. It is quite possible to identify their names. 

2. Mass Terror of the Russian Guard (Rosguardia). Since all the inhabitants of Ukraine are against the invaders, all of them can be declared "Nazis", grabbing absolutely anyone. So the organized terror of the special services is dissolved in the mass terror, which is done by the Russian Guards. They could also refuse to go to Ukraine, so they are just as guilty, and their lists can also be obtained.

3. The chaotic terror of bullies (gopniks). In the early 1990s, Russia was hit by a wave of rampant bullies. I hated them so much that I was ready for anything, so I really understand the feelings of those who crave for their death after the massacre in Bucha. Now, however, the Russian authorities use bullies to maintain a certain level of criminality, so that people fear and rely only on authoritarian power, which supposedly protects them. Any talk about a change of power immediately runs into fear of rampant crime. The occupiers deliberately decided to use bullies to intimidate Ukrainians, believing that in this way they would nip in the bud the possibility of protests, providing a picture of mass support of the population. The bullies drafted into the army were previously driven into a state of complete brutality, and then released on the people. 

Of course, in war there are «excesses of the performer», when soldiers begin to commit atrocities spontaneously, but this is not the case. In Bucha, terror was chaotic, but directed from above. Of course, the command did not order the rape and murder of a 10-year-old girl, it was enough to give only an instruction that in case of a crime no witnesses should be left. This is indicated by the location of the people killed: in the center are the main victims of violence, and around those who could have been an accidental witness. Without instruction from above, the bullies would not have thought about witnesses at all.

It is also possible to identify among them those directly involved in the massacre. The looters themselves got spotted, sending parcels with loot to their homes. It is more difficult with the bullies, who were not engaged in looting, but in murders. However, these are such dim-witted people who can’t help but brag. Therefore, to determine exactly what they were doing in the occupied territories, it is enough to talk to their friends. Therefore, in order to establish exactly what they did in the occupied territories, it is enough to talk with their friends.

4. Total terror of the Wagnerites. PMC Wagner is an informal private armed group created for the dirtiest work - terror, torture, murder. There’s no crime the Wagnerians aren’t capable of. They are invited to Ukraine as professionals of their work - torture and murder.

There is a danger that the Wagnerites will be exchanged along with prisoners of war on the principle of “all for all”. However, the Wagnerites are not military men, but hired killers, mercenaries, and they should not be treated as prisoners of war, but as terrorists captured at the scene of a crime. In order to legally formalize the non-applicability of the Geneva Conventions to them in relation to prisoners of war, a court is needed to recognize PMCs Wagner as a terrorist organization in accordance with the Law of Ukraine “On Combating Terrorism”.

5. A separate group should include all ideologues and propagandists who have not directly killed but are also accomplices to the murders.

The driving force behind terror was the hatred engendered by the mutation of the imperial idea of land collection. In itself, this idea is not original. Its essence lies in the denial of the independent value of cultures and peoples that did not become part of Russia. However, in the new mutated version of the imperial idea, any country independent of Russia, which becomes civilized and free, is perceived as hostile and identified with metaphysical evil, subject to complete destruction. This leads to a picture of the world in which evil and good change places, and the mind and feelings of people dissolve in the combined cumulative energy of hatred.

Gopniks are not able to consciously follow an ideology, since their minds and souls are empty, but this emptiness is easily filled by hatred poured in from outside, which is very similar to being possessed by dark spirits. In such a “possessed” state, atrocities incomprehensible to a normal person are happening. When I was young, I read the novel Ulcer by Natalie Hennenberg, which describes the world of the future, when humanity was engulfed by an epidemic of this kind of obsession. In this novel, I felt exactly that atmosphere of obsession with irrational evil, which now runs rampant through the entire hierarchy from Putin to the last bully raping a child in Ukraine.

In this way, every war criminal can be identified, and their punishment is a matter of political will, which exists in Ukraine. Of course, Ukraine will win the war, which will lead to a change of power in Russia. But even in this case, the lifting of sanctions against Russia should not be allowed until the last war criminal is punished.

Nikolai Karpitsky. April 3, 2022. Ukraine. Thirty-ninth day of war

In the morning, a plane was buzzing over my house, and in the afternoon, a message came that it had already been shot down in the area of Izyum, the pilot was caught. Nice. To the sound of a siren I took my Sunday four kilometers walk around the city to the church «Good News». At the service, a new motive appeared in the sermon - persistent advice to all who hesitate to evacuate to the West.

Sirens didn’t cause much concern before, but as the enemy approaches the city, you begin to take them more seriously. They shoot very close to us now. I enjoy the rain, because the more damp, the more difficult it is for the invaders to maneuver. The enemy is between us and Izyum. He has already tried to advance many times, but every time he was thrown back. And so it has been for several days, which means that until the occupiers have new reserves, the situation will not change. It will be difficult, the risk of the encircling remains. It is very likely that by May 9, Putin will try to destroy the unsubdued cities of Donbass by bombing, but he still cannot win. Even if he decides to use tactical nuclear weapons. In a couple of weeks, everything will be covered with greenery, and it is here in the Donbass he’ll find his final defeat.

Kiev region is completely liberated. Bitter victory. Instead of joy, the horror of the footage from the freed Bucha. There was nothing like that even in Slavyansk under Girkin, famous for the killings of civilians. These are not even bestial cruelties, for the wild beasts, in all their cruelty, are closer to man. This is an outrage, rampage frenzy. In legal terminology – genocide, in religious – Satanism. People are shocked, unable to discuss it. I myself need time to process it internally, so now I am not able to write about what the Russian occupiers were doing there. I met Gena Lysenko. He is a very brave man, when in captivity at Girkin they imitated his execution, he did not even flinch. But now, after seeing the footage from Bucha, he couldn’t talk about it either. We will talk about the monstrous massacre in Bucha, Irpeni, Gostomel later, and much.

Now it is clear what awaited Ukraine if Kyiv fell, as predicted by all the best intelligence in the world: Bucha in every city. The number of civilian casualties would be in the millions. And now I have a question: how can Putin now threaten Ukraine with a tactical nuclear strike if it experienced something worse in Bucha? 

The massacre in Bucha will change the minds of people throughout the world. It is no longer possible to trade as before within the framework of real-politics with a bloody maniac. It is impossible to treat as before the church leaders, silencing or justifying the invasion of Russia. Theology itself and the attitude towards religion cannot remain the same as before. And it is no longer possible to forgive the unwillingness to take responsibility for what is happening.

I understand that from the point of real-politics, it is beneficial for Ukraine to conclude a truce with Russia, reducing its losses, so that later the West will economically crush it with sanctions. But I don’t understand how this is possible after the Bucha massacre, and how it is generally possible to negotiate with total evil. I also don’t see how a state that has committed such crimes can physically exist. How could Nazi Germany, after the gas chambers, having been defeated by the anti-Hitler coalition, return to its borders and coexist peacefully with other European countries? In Bucha, Putin finally finished off Russia. If any of the Russians has a hope that the war will end, and then it will be possible to return to their old habitual life, it is in vain. Our small apocalypse has already come, and the past cannot be returned. Of course, one can try to stay in the stage of denial, anger, bargaining, but still have to accept the reality.

Nikolai Karpitsky. April 2, 2022. Ukraine. Thirty-eighth day of war

Quiet for now, explosions are rarely heard. Russian troops have taken Izyum and are preparing for a new offensive. Now they are 30 kilometers from us. It’s going to be very hot soon. Yesterday morning Alexander Palchenko came with his wife and told a lot of interesting things. He’s a fourth-generation officer, and now he’s a volunteer. He professionally understands the military situation in the Donbass, and I took the opportunity to ask about how the Ukrainian army is fighting.

According to military assessments by western experts, Ukraine’s organized resistance was to collapse within three days. And these assessments were quite objective. The Russian military machine had an absolute technical advantage, and if the Ukrainian army had tried to hold the armored avalanche, it would first have been mixed with the ground by missile airstrike, and then rammed down with tanks. And if it started to retreat, it would have got into cauldrons, losing command centers and supply bases as a result of missile attacks. That’s why the Western allies gave only defensive guerrilla weapons. Evidently, it was hoped that the guerrilla war in Ukraine would buy them time to prepare for the defense against Russia’s attack on the countries of Eastern Europe. However, contrary to all calculations, Ukraine has contained the onslaught of the second world army, which was not even expected by Western politicians and military experts.

As Alexander Palchenko explained to me, the Ukrainian army uses «makhno» tactics, which in modern conditions nobody expected. During the Civil War, the Makhnovists invented tachanka, which ran on the steppe and decimated both white and red. Here goes the army on the steppe, and suddenly out of nowhere comes a hundred tachankas and starts to mow down everyone, and then it dissolves, as if it was not there. How to fight them, if they are elusive, do not occupy fixed positions, and therefore there is simply nothing to seize? It’s the same now. Let’s suppose the Russian battalion tactical group is advancing. One can try to stop it, but it's a loss. The Ukrainian military let it through, allowing it to stretch for many kilometers, and then they cut off the supply trucks in the rear, destroying it piece by piece. 

The Russian army is still accumulating forces near Izyum to attack us, but it will not be easy for it to pass these thirty kilometers to Slavyansk. The hilly forest area between us is an ideal shelter for the dispersed maneuverable Ukrainian units. They can suddenly attack the enemy and then dissolve in the forest again, preventing enemy artillery from destroying themselves. As soon as the enemy accumulates forces and begins to move, it is immediately tracked, and dispersed Ukrainian detachments are instantly united for a joint operation. Somewhere hidden, the battery strikes the column and immediately changes position to avoid being hit back, while an infantry platoon with grenade projectors ambushes the retreating. 

If necessary, someone else can be thrown who is nearby. But as soon as the enemy tries to strike back, everyone disappears into the forest again. The cannonade accompanying such fights, I regularly hear when I write here at home messages to my chronicle.

Thanks to such makhno tactics, it is possible to contain the offensive of the incomparably more powerful, but sluggish, Russian army. If a Russian platoon urgently needs the help of a battery, then it should ask for it only through the high command, which will think until it is too late. In the Russian army, all decisions come down from above, and unapproved initiative is not allowed. However, in Putin’s government system all this is made worse by the fact that even the highest command is afraid to take the initiative, so it continues to follow the plans that have already failed and thus condemns the soldiers to death, forbidding them to change their doomed positions or sending them on pointless offensives.

On the contrary, the Ukrainian army has been given the opportunity to take the initiative at all levels. This establishes horizontal links between the sergeants, who can instantly coordinate the dispersed platoons in order to take advantage of the unexpectedly opened opportunity to destroy the units of the occupier, and then break up again and walk away from the counterattack. The High Command assigns tasks, and in the field they are carried out in the most expedient way, thanks to the horizontal coordination of the army. At the same time, each platoon can conduct its own reconnaissance, planning and make responsible decisions, so the occupiers simply do not have time to react to the actions of the Ukrainian military.

In addition, the Russian army is fundamentally unable to restructure and adopt Ukrainian tactics, as it is not motivated to fight. After all, the Russian soldiers came as occupiers without understanding why, and if they were given the initiative, they would certainly do nothing. They’re already sabotaging high-command decisions, simulating military activity. Therefore, high-ranking officers have to come to the field to deal with sabotage, and at that moment they become convenient targets for the Ukrainian military. This explains the unprecedented losses of senior officers.

Therefore, the Russian army is doomed to fight the way it fights, while the Ukrainian command may allow local initiative, as Ukrainian soldiers understand that the war is being waged to destroy Ukraine, and that they are defending their families and their loved ones, so without tips they will act in the most effective way.

Nikolai Karpitsky. 31 March 2022. Ukraine. Thirty-sixth day of war

On Monday, I was still worried that Russian troops, who had bypassed Izyum from the south, would break into Slavyansk. The distance between them and us is only half an hour by car. Now, for some reason, there is calm and readiness for everything. It’s Thursday and the enemy is still not here. But all these days, the cannon was heard - it was the Ukrainian military shelling the attackers. The defense line between Izyum and Slavyansk is very convenient to hold, I guess that the enemy also understood this, and now will break through Barvenkovo in order to get to Slavyansk from the west. However, he might not have enough time considering the crushing defeat he suffered in Rogani - a suburb of Kharkov. We have to fight with guerrilla’s weapons, which they have supplied enough. For their indecision Ukrainians pay with their lives.

Today I talked on Skype with father Vladimir Maglena. The conversation will be included into the cycle «War from the point of view of religion»: Topic «Fear». How to deal with your own fear when there is a war? Fear is natural and unnatural, paralyzing the will of man. In particular, people under fire will only experience fear when the threat is very specific and they stop responding to the hypothetical danger. As soon as it gets calm, there’s a relaxation, as if you return to a peaceful life without fear. Such fear is natural, because it does not suppress, but on the contrary helps to act adequately in a situation. But the further away from the front, the greater the fear of another kind, causing depression, weakness and the feeling of being the victim of circumstances. This fear stems not from direct danger, but from a pessimistic view of the world and a passive attitude to life. 

I’m not in the line of fire yet, even though I can hear cannons all the time. Not like in Mariupol, which Russian troops systematically destroy. So before opening the video of the conversation about the war with f. Vladimir, I suggest you first look at the video diary of a teenage girl from Mariupol. She was lucky to survive, she was taken away. Under the shelling she spent two weeks, which fit in seven minutes of video recording. 

This is a terrific video! You completely immerse in this island of everyday life within the unleashed hell. When you feel the inner calm of a teenage girl, it’s like you’re finding ground under your feet in this bottomless hell. This ground is the true being, which is revealed in the sense of the communion of the inner life of another person.