Author Archives: RomanInUkraine

Russians feel less positive towards religion now than they did in 1990

OVER the quarter-century since the collapse of the Soviet system, Russian feelings about religion have changed a lot, as one might imagine. In Soviet times, the state expected and encouraged citizens to be atheists. Now a loose affiliation to a religious faith has become the national default mode; a plurality of Russians tell pollsters they are Russian Orthodox, while significant minorities identify with Islam, Buddhism or Judaism.

But a survey published a few days ago (link in Russian) by one of Russia’s best-known pollsters, VTSIOM, showed something unexpected in its comparison of present-day attitudes in Russia with those of 1990. Although there is a jump (from 23% to 55%) in the share of people who say they are sometimes “helped” by religion in their own lives, the general effect of religion on human welfare is viewed in much bleaker terms than before. The proportion of people who think religion does more good than harm to society has slumped from 61% to 36% while the share detecting more harm than good has risen from 5% to 23%.

http://www.economist.com/blogs/erasmus/2015/07/religion-russia?fsrc=scn/tw/te/bl/ed/russiansfeellesspositivetowardsreligion

Russia Inadvertently Posts Its Casualties In Ukraine: 2,000 Deaths, 3,200 Disabled

This is probably deaths among regular army. From all the interviews of irregulars, it really seems like they’re cannon fodder and nobody’s counting.

Business Life (Delovaya Zhizn) reports on markets, finance, entrepreneurship, finance, and leisure, scarcely an outlet for sensational information. Its innocuously entitled “Increases in Pay for Military in 2015,” however, reveals what appear to be official figures on the number of Russian soldiers killed or made invalids “in eastern Ukraine.”

http://www.forbes.com/sites/paulroderickgregory/2015/08/25/kremlin-censors-rush-to-erase-inadvertent-release-of-russian-casualties-in-east-ukraine/

Ukrainian swimmer flees persecution in Crimea: “It’s worse than Soviet times!”

Sevastopol marathon swimmer Oleg Sofyanik has decided to stay in mainland Ukraine after being summoned for questioning about another Ukrainian, Yury Ilchenko who is in detention, seemingly for an article opposing Russia’s occupation of Crimea. Sofyanik has also openly expressed his opposition and fears he will be arrested if he returns.

The 51-year-old swimmer is known beyond Ukraine and has taken part in many marathon swimming events. The 51-year-old was apparently a dissident in Soviet times and faced KGB persecution. Like Ilchenko, he made no secret of his opposition to Russia’s annexation of his native Crimea. Although facing FSB harassment, and FSB questioning as to why he didn’t take Russian citizenship, he had until recently managed to remain, He explained to Censor.net that he had been monitoring rights abuses in Crimea. This, he said, was needed as others who would normally be reporting abuses are either imprisoned or have left Crimea.

http://khpg.org/index.php?id=1438263832

Trump on Crimea: “Europe’s Problems”

http://thehill.com/blogs/pundits-blog/international/250315-trump-is-right-on-crimea

In some sense, I agree with him.

It was very, very important for Ukrainians to fight. They did.

Now, I would love to see a coordinated, planned withdrawal of US forces from Europe, so that Europeans stand up for themselves and become less cowardly.

I would also love to see a Baltic-Eastern European partnership as a solution to the Russian problem. NATO is too cumbersome and political. They should enable the countries directly threatened by Russian to act more boldly.

Also, give three nukes each to Poland, Lithuania, Estonia, Ukraine and Georgia.