Ukrainians everywhere are now spontaneously rising up against the foreign-financed and foreign-backed Neo-Nazi junta in Kiev which, with help from Polish and Lithuanian mercenaries, overthrew the democratically-elected President Yanukovich. Now the flagship of the Ukrainian Navy, the Hetman Sahaidachny, has refused to follow orders from the junta, coming over to Russia’s side and flying the Russian naval flag. The captain, Rear Admiral Andrey Tarasov disobeyed orders from Kiev.
The move comes after the Navy command resigned on Friday. Self-appointed President Aleksandr Turchinov made Rear Admiral Denis Berezovsky the new Navy Chief, a statement published on the President’s website Saturday said. An ITAR-TASS correspondent in Crimea has reported that the Ukrainian military serving in Crimea-deployed units are joining the local self-defence forces. Many servicemen disagree with the junta’s direction, so, they leave their units and tender their resignations. Some units said they would only take orders from the commanders of Crimea’s self-defence forces.
Meanwhile, three Russian federal subjects have reported increasing flows of refugees from the Ukraine. Belgorod Province Governor Yevgeny Savchenko said that thousands of refugees from southern, eastern and central Ukraine are pouring into Belgorod Province. The refugees say that they are fleeing the continuing rampages unleashed by unruly ultra-right elements who seized power and think that they can get away with anything. “Crowds of gunmen… no one knows where they came from… roam around, staging all sorts of provocations. Yesterday, they attempted to block the Moscow-Crimea highway. We’re deeply concerned”.
The Governor of Rostov Province, Vasily Golubyov, told reporters that people are fleeing political and social uncertainty, saying that they no longer feel safe in their homes. Bryansk Province Governor Nikolai Denin echoed this, saying that what is happening in the Ukraine perplexes most refugees and they fear for their safety. He added that local people are giving them aid, sympathy and understanding. According to Federation Council Chairman, Yevgeny Bushmin, more than 140,000 Ukrainians have fled to Russia since the beginning of unrest in the Ukraine. He said that most refugees are staying with their relatives and friends.
Speaking for the Church, Archpriest Vsevolod Chaplin, the head of the Russian Orthodox Church Synodal Department for the Coordination of Church and Society has said, “Back in 1995, the World Russian People’s Council stated that the Russian people are a divided nation on its historical territory; it has the right to be reunited in a single state body, that’s an accepted norm of international politics”. Today, he expressed the hope that these people would have a guaranteed right to an independent free choice of civilisational blocs, saying, “At the same time, we hope, in fact, that the Russian military’s mission to protect not only the freedom and identity, but also the lives, of these people would not meet fierce resistance, with large-scale clashes. Nobody wants bloodshed…that would only deepen the divide that already exists amongst Orthodox people on Russian historical space”.
He said that in the last few days many people on both sides of the Russian-Ukrainian border, including Orthodox, urged the Russian government to protect people who are “under strong pressure on linguistic grounds. Sadly, most do not understand how current reality is hostile to their right of civilisational choice, how they are not in step with the whims of the European élites. Yet, these élites are becoming increasingly marginalised, as they do not respect the will of the majority of the peoples of the world, as well as many in Western Europe itself”. ‘In the best periods of its history, Russia came to the defence of people whose life and liberty was in danger. It helped those who are close to us in faith and spirit, it helped those who did not want to live under imposed external control, and it helped those who wanted to keep their ideological and civilisational freedom. Of course, especially, in this case, it is about Christians who want to live in a Christian way, to build their future as part of a civilisation fundamentally different from the Protestant-Catholic one, different from the secularised West, and different from the civilisations lying to the east of the Orthodox world”.