Wien
Surrounded in the peace and quiet of Austria, celebrating the Roman Catholic Easter, I think of the enormity of the crime committed – apparently by Islamic fanatics – on the outskirts of Moscow, an event so gruesome that in the West, many can hardly comprehend it. More than one hundred Russians killed, most probably because they were seen as Christians and hostile to Islam, betrayed by those in the Kremlin, who were supposed to protect them against evil, but being evil themselves had long ago abandoned this responsibility.
When in May we come to the Easter of the Orthodox Church, you will hear that terrible Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and All Russians expressing his sorrow and indignation at the massacre of Krasnogorsk. He will then proceed to bless the Russian soldiers, who since February 2022 have killed and maimed hundreds of thousands of Ukrainian christians, in the view of Moscow a divine crusade against perverted and ungrateful infidels.
You will see Kirill, a former KGB agent, together with Vladimir Putin, another former KGB agent, now fascist Russia’s Führer and supreme warlord, acting out an age-old Russian ritual, that of the heavenly and the earthly power in tandem running Holy Russia. Together, they have made sure that the renewal of Russia, initiated in another generation by Mikhail Gorbachev and Boris Yeltsin, was reversed to the degree, where Russia, in its own estimation a big and moral power, is seen by others as a gangster-state, a paria, removed from the reality of its unsuccessful war in Ukraine today, from an economy in troubles and from this basic disaster that its population since the fall of Communism in 1991 has dwindled from about 150 million to now maybe a fraction over 140 million.
So say goodbye to Russia as a serious – though not decent – state within a generation or two. Meanwhile, Putin seems so shaken by the mass killing in a commuter town just about an hour’s drive from the Kremlin that he cannot adjust to the obvious fact that the crime in Krasnogorsk was committed by Islamists, not by Ukraine, as he continues to claim through clenched teeth and with a face as pale and devoid of human emotion as Death itself. The Führer has been humiliated and weakened, the very lie of his rule barreled out of the guns in Krasnogorsk that terrible Friday night, his contract with the Russians – “you stay out of politics, I take care of your security” – laying in tatters on the floor of the burned out concert hall.
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Much of the world is in a state of alarm. Extremist Muslim terror has returned, triggered by the Kremlin’s tyranny in the Islamic republics of the Russian Federation and its war in Syria, by Israel’s bloody war in Gaza, by the upcoming Olympic Games in France and the European Football Championship in Germany, by next June´s European Union elections and next November´s elections in the United States, and – not least – by the Kremlin’s neglect of Russia’s internal security.
The terrorists struck in Moscow not because they had a special interest in Moscow, but because Moscow seemed to them an accessible target, as evidenced by the flippancy with which Putin dismissed U.S. warnings in March that a terrorist attack was imminent. With this politically motivated blindness, Putin made himself more than partially responsible for the Krasnogorsk massacre, emerging as Russia´s Judas.
Has Europe increased its readiness? Certainly, but perhaps not enough. A dangerous summer is approaching in the sense that while an unstable Russia wages war on Europe in the shape of Ukraine, many Europeans will head for the beaches, for street parties, and for general amusement and relaxation, a bit of a parallel to 1914, when the continent was, in the words of historian Christopher Clarke, “sleepwalking” into World War I. We are in need of more seriousness, more guns, tanks, and ammunition, more submarines, anti-aircraft guns, and armed drones, more soldiers, more awareness that if Russia defeats Ukraine, the next front will be in Poland and the Baltic States, possibly also in Moldova and Romania.
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At Easter, with its special message, you don’t have to be a Christian to see yourself surrounded by the freaks of earthly power. Foremost among them is Putin, whose security apparatus wastes time and energy, persecuting minor dissidents and critics of the horrific Ukraine war today, thereby ignoring the real threat from Islamist forces inside and outside Russia. Since Krasnogorsk, Putin, morally and politically deformed, has misused a national tragedy to sell himself – once again – to a population, the majority of which seems to prefer lies and illusions to a truthful attitude toward itself and its leaders.
In the United States, another political freak, Putin’s admirer Donald Trump, is threatening a bloodbath (no less), if he loses the presidential election in seven months. Does Trump know what he will do with himself and the business of government, with its difficulties and hard work, if he manages to return to the White House? What is he, but a pot without a handle, an artificiality surrounded by sycophants, in the company of Putin in Russia, Xi Jinping in China, Kim Jong Un in North Korea, Ebrahim Raisi in Iran, Nicolas Maduro in Venezuela, and – yes – Benjamin Netanyahu in Israel, who allowed 32,000 Palestinians to be killed in Gaza and who, in his increasingly tense relationship with Joe Biden’s Washington, is gambling with Israel’s existence.
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In the bright light of Easter, we see that the abnormal becomes normal. In this same light, we also sense that we, especially in the West, have neglected spirituality in favor of dead money, material goods, and technical knowledge at the expense of wisdom. In many places we have a better world, but not a better understanding of who,, we are, from where we come from, and to where we go. Many are afraid, others feel rejected. There is in the West an emptiness, which as far as I know does not exist in Ukraine, where the meaning of life is to fight death day and night. Easter is the story of betrayal, fear and death, then the miracle of the resurrection. Easter gives hope, Easter shows the way. Ukraine gives hope, Ukraine shows the way.
From Vienna, I wish the readers of this column a peaceful and safe Easter.
By Per Nyholm
*These opinions are solely those of the author. The Ukrainian Review takes no position and is not responsible for the author’s words.
Per Nyholm has been a Danish journalist since 1960. He is based in Austria and is a columnist and foreign correspondent at the Jyllands-Posten, a liberal Danish daily newspaper.
Tetiana Stelmakh adapted this text for The Ukrainian Review.
