Crisis in Crimea

1. By Dr. Peter Hammond

3. By Dr. Peter Hammond

6. To understand the crisis in Crimea, one needs to learn how Russia
seized Czechoslovakia and crushed the Prague spring in 1968.

7. That observation was from
Rev. Bill Bathman,
my Father-in-Law,
who has served as a Missionary
for over 60 years,
mostly in Eastern Europe,
behind the Iron Curtain,
during the Cold War.

8. Bill Bathman and Brother Andrew were in Prague in 1968 as the
Russian T-62s roared into town, flattening civilian cars as they
occupied Wenceslaus Square.

9. As Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, declared: "If we do not know our own
history, we will simply have to endure all the same mistakes,
sacrifices and absurdities all over again."

11. INTO THE VALLEY OF DEATH
RODE THE SIX HUNDRED
Lord Tennyson Lord Cardigan

12. Crimea is much in the news today. Many people may have trouble
finding Crimea on the map. Some say that they have never heard of
Crimea before this current crisis. However, that is probably not true.

13. Most of us are aware of the Crimean War or at least of Florence
Nightingale, who launched the modern nursing movement, caring for
wounded and sick British soldiers during the Crimean War.

14. The
Charge of
the Light
Brigade
Many have surely heard of The
Charge of the Light Brigade
that took place during the
Crimean War. Alfred Lord
Tennyson wrote the poem,
The Charge of the Light
Brigade in 1854:

15. "Half a league,
half a league,
half a league onward,
All in the valley of Death
rode the six hundred.
Forward,
the Light Brigade!
Charge for the guns!
he said.
Into the valley of Death
rode the six hundred.

16. "Forward, the Light Brigade! Was there a man dismayed?
Not though the soldier knew someone had blundered.
Theirs not to make reply, theirs not to reason why,
Theirs but to do and die.
Into the valley of Death rode the six hundred.

17. "Cannon to right of them, cannon to left of them,
Cannon in front of them volleyed and thundered;
Stormed at with shot and shell, boldly they rode and well,
into the jaws of Death.
Into the mouth of hell rode the six hundred.

18. "Flashed all their sabres bare, flashed as they turned in air
sabring the gunners there, charging an army,
while all the world wondered.

19. Plunged in the battery-smoke, right through the line they broke;
Cossack and Russian reeled from the sabre stroke,
shattered and sundered.
Then they rode back, but not the six hundred.

20. "Cannon to right of them, cannon to left of them,
cannon behind them volleyed and thundered;
Stormed at with shot and shell, while horse and hero fell.

21. They that had fought so well, came through the jaws of Death,
Back from the mouth of hell.
All that was left of them, left of six hundred.

22. "When can their glory fade? O the wild charge they made!
All the world wondered.
Honour the charge they made!
Honour the Light Brigade, noble six hundred!"

23. Alfred Tennyson's poem was
published 9 December 1854 in
The Examiner.
Courage
Despite
Confusion

24. Inspired by the term in Psalm 23 of the Valley of the shadow of death, it highlights
one of the most famous events of the long and costly Crimean War.

25. The Light Brigade had been
ordered into a nearly hopeless
situation, due to command
confusion and incompetence.

26. Yet incredibly they succeeded in
reaching the Russian artillery at the
end of a valley lined with artillery
on both sides, and they actually
succeeded in fighting their way out
of a Russian trap.

27. Most of the men made it
back to their own lines.

28. Actually there were 666 men, who charged in the Light Brigade that day.
There have been a number of films made on that event.

31. However, for most people that would be the full extent
of their knowledge of Crimea.

32. The Crimean War was called one of the first modern wars because it
saw the first to use major technology, such as railways and telegraphs.
The First Modern War

33. It was also one of the first wars to be documented extensively in
photographs and written reports.

34. The Crimean War exposed horrendous logistical failures
in both the British and Russian armies.

35. The reports of War
correspondents led to
widespread demands for
sweeping reforms in the
military.
Military
Reforms

36. The sale of commissions in the
British Army came under scrutiny
and was eventually abolished as a
result of exposés of incompetence
in the field.

37. The war also led
to the
establishment
of the Victoria
Cross as the
British Army's
first universal
award for
Valour.

38. Emancipation
The Crimean War was also a contributing factor in Russia abolishing
Serfdom in 1861.

39. Czar Alexander II saw the military defeat of the Russian serf army by
free troops from Britain and France as proof of the need for
emancipating the Serfs.

40. The Russian government also began a major modernisation of its forces
as it had seen its technical inferiority in military practices as well as
weapons.

41. Russian military medicine saw dramatic progress through the Crimean
War as N.I. Pirogov, known as the Father of Russian Field Surgery,
developed the use of anaesthetics, plaster casts, enhanced
amputation methods and five-stage triage.

42. The debts that Russia
incurred from the
Crimean War led
Alexander II to decide
to sell Alaska to the
United States to help
pay their war debts.
Alaska

43. However, as interesting as all of
these developments were,
the most important question is
seldom asked:
Why?
Unasked Reason
Why

44. Why were British and French forces fighting the Russians in Crimea in
the first place?

45. From the Western media at the time, one would
have received the impression that the issue was to
protect "poor little Turkey" from the predatory
aggressions of imperial Russia.
The Last Crusade

46. However, the Russians saw it very differently.
Some Russians called the war: The Last Crusade.

47. From the 15th century, the dominant Muslim power was
the Ottoman Turkish Empire, which oppressed millions of Christians
including Armenians, Greeks and many Slavs.
The Turkish Threat

48. With the fall of the greatest city
in the world at that time,
Constantinople, in 1453, and the
massacre of the entire city by
Muslim Turks, the Byzantine
Empire which has stood for over
1,000 years fell.

49. Russia took up the mantle of the Eastern Roman Empire. Two Romes
had fallen, proclaimed the Czars, the third Rome now stands!
The Defenders of the Faith

50. St. Petersberg and the Russian Empire saw themselves as heir
to the Christian Byzantine Empire.

51. Inspired by the vision in
Daniel, generations of
Russians saw their manifest
destiny as liberating the
Orthodox Christian world
from the sons of Ishmael,
whose wild hand was against
every man.

52. At the height of the Turkish wars, in the 1770s, Catherine the Great of
Russia christened one of her grandsons Constantine.

53. For centuries Russian statesmen saw their manifest destiny to defend
Orthodox Christianity against Islamic Jihad and also against Roman
Catholicism.

54. Systematically Russia worked at freeing Christians from Ottoman
Turkish control, liberating the Balkans and forcing the Turks to respect
the religious freedom of their Christian subjects.
Russia’s Manifest Destiny

55. As Russia extended Christian
civilisation across the whole of
North Asia to the Pacific
Ocean, they also were pushing
southward in their civilising
mission, seeking to liberate
the holy places in Palestine,
which were then controlled by
the Muslim Turks.

56. Propping Up Turkey
If it had not been for the intervention of Great Britain and
France, the Russians would have undoubtedly overrun the
whole rotten, corrupt and crumbling edifice of the Turkish
Empire, and established Orthodox Christianity
throughout the Middle East.

57. However Britain dreaded the establishment of a Russian superpower
stretching from the Arctic to the Indian Ocean.
The Scandalous Alliance

58. So, to prevent Russia gaining
ice-free ports for their Navy,
Britain became the protector
and guarentor
of the Ottoman Empire.

59. As leader of the opposition at that
time, Gladstone declared:
Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli
"Is not such a Turk as I thought.
What he hates is Christian liberty
and reconstruction."

60. Gladstone described the
British alliance with Turkey as
"The Scandalous Alliance."

61. Turkey had been the greatest threat to the freedom of Europe
throughout the centuries. The Turks had twice besieged Vienna
in the heart of Europe.
The Greatest Threat

62. They had sacked Budapest, taking hundreds of thousands of Christians
into Islamic slavery from the very heart of Europe.

63. In 1822 the entire population of the Island of Chios,
tens-of-thousands of people, were massacred, or enslaved. In 1823,
8,750 Christians were slaughtered by the Turks at Missolonghi.

64. Thousands of Assyrian Christians were murdered in the Province of
Mosul in 1850.

65. It was such atrocities as these that led the Russians to demand the
right to protect the Holy Places which were
under Orthodox supervision, in the Middle East.

66. The status quo was destabilised in 1852 with the accession to power
in France of Napoleon III.
The New Napoleonic Empire
of France

67. In order to increase his prestige,
he sought to provoke an
international crisis by demanding
that the Turks place the Holy places
in the Middle East under the power
of the Roman Catholic church,
rather than the Orthodox.

68. As Napoleon III's new French regime was completely secular, this was
a cynical and manipulative diplomatic move designed to provoke war.

69. So Napoleon III's France assumed the role of Catholic crusader,
effectively supporting the blood-stained, despotic and corrupt
Ottoman Turkish Empire. This move led to soaking the continent
in blood.
Extending the Life of Ottoman Oppression

70. Over 800,000 died
in the Crimean War.

71. Far more serious than the actual loss in lives and limbs, was that the
British and French actions in the Crimean War extended the worthless
existence of the Turkish tyranny, who now targeted the Christians who
had previously been under the protection of Czarist Russia.

72. In 1860, over 12,000 Christians were slaughtered by the Turks in
Lebanon. In 1876, 14,700 Bulgarians were murdered by the Turks.
The Butcher’s Bill

73. At the town of Batao, out of 7,000 inhabitants,
5,000 were put to the sword by the Muslims.

74. However, reports of these and other routine atrocities by
the Ottoman Turks were generally supressed by British government
of Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli, for political reasons.

75. He saw it as more important to block Russian Naval ambitions to secure
an ice-free port by promoting an alliance of convenience with Turkey.

76. As Serge Trifkovic in The Sword of the Prophet, observed: "The great
Western powers – the heirs of those who had looted Constantinople in
the Crusades and refused to help when the Turks were breaking
through the walls with a canon built by an Hungarian Catholic,
Supporting the Enemies of
Christian Civilisation

77. who forced
the last
Emperors to
forswear
their
Orthodox
Faith at the
Council of
Florence as
the price of
Western help
that never
came –

78. those same Western powers, and Great Britain in particular, actually
supported the Turkish subjugation of Christian Europeans
on the ground that the Muhammadin Empire was a stabilising force
and a counter weight against Austria and Russia.

79. The scandalous alliance with Turkey against Russia in the Crimean
War, reflect a pernicious frame of mind that has manifested itself more
recently in the overt, covert, or de-facto support of certain Western
powers for the Muslim side in Bosnia, Kosovo, Macedonia, Chechnya,
Cyprus, Sudan, East Timor and Kashmir."

80. The Turks
slaughtered over
200,000
Armenian
Christians
in Bayazid (1877).
Turkish
Slaughter
of
Christian
s

81. Other massacres followed in Alashgurd (1879), Sassun (1894),
Constantinople (1896), Adana (1909), and Armenia (1895-1896).

82. In 1915 the Turks massacred over 1.5 million Armenian Christians.
In 1881 the Turks slaughtered Christians in Alexandria. In 1915-1916,
over 100,000 Christians were murdered in Lebanon and Syria.

83. As Prime Minister Gladstone observed concerning the Turks: "They
were upon, the whole, from the dark day when they first entered
A Terrible Track Record

84. Wherever they went a broad line of blood
marked the track behind them.

85. As far as their dominion reached, civilisation
disappeared from view. They represented
everywhere, government by force, as opposed to
government by law."

86. For centuries the
Turks demanded an
annual “blood levy”
of Christian boys.
Parents were
forced to hand
over one out of
every five
Christian boys for
service in the
Sultan’s army as
janissaries.

87. Even as the Ottoman Empire crumbled and was replaced by the new
Republic of Turkey under Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, the ancient city of
Smyrna, with its 300,000 Christian population, was destroyed.
The Destruction of Smyrna

88. As recently as September 1922 the Turkish army
destroyed the ancient city of Smyrna with its
300,000 Christian population.

89. The burning of Smyrna and the massacre of its Christian population
marked the end of Greek civilisation in Asia Minor.

90. Incredibly, British, American, Italian and French warships anchored in
Smyrna's harbour were ordered to maintain neutrality and even
refused the pleas of refugees swimming to their anchored ships.

91. Even as late as 1955, Istanbul's Christians suffered what one reporter
called "the worst race riot in Europe".

92. It is no wonder that William Muir (1819-1905),
one of the greatest orientalists of all times,
concluded at the end of his long and distinguished career:
An Unmitigated Cultural Disaster

93. "The sword of Muhammad and the Quran are the most fatal enemies
of civilisation, liberty and truth which the world has yet known…
an unmitigated cultural disaster parading as God's Will…"

94. So, 160 years ago, Western European powers interfered
in the policies of Russia, invaded the Crimea, and, as a result,
strengthened the hand of radical Islam.
Counter Productive Intervention

95. Instead of supporting civilisation and advancing freedom,
the Western powers intervention in Crimea, in the 1856-1856
Crimean War, actually undermined freedom,

96. retarded civilisation and unintentionally led to even worse massacres
of Christians in the extended life granted
to the tyrannical Turkish Empire.

97. Obviously Russian policies are influenced by both religious and secular
motives. Russia desires ice-free, warm water naval bases.
Secular and Spiritual Concerns

98. Odessa and Sevastopol are considered most strategic and essential
for the Russian Federation's security.

99. However, there is also the strong national conviction that
it is Russia's manifest destiny to extend Orthodox Christian
civilisation throughout the Middle East and its sworn duty
to protect Orthodox Christians in the Middle East.

100. That is why Russia has extended its strong arm over the secular regime
in Syria, which has provided protection
for the 6% of its population who are Christian.
Protecting the Persecuted

101. The Russian government has been one of the only European
governments to speak out against Islamic persecution of Christians,
Russia called for his international intervention to protect the Christians
of the Middle East from persecution.

102. Since the fall of the Soviet Union the Russian government has worked
intimately with the Orthodox Church who have enthusiastically
participated to consecrating national events.
Partnership Between the Orthodox
Church and The Russian State

103. The Russian government has helped rebuild many Orthodox
Cathedrals and monasteries, which have been confiscated and
devastated by the Communists during the terrible
70 years of Soviet control.

104. One would hope that those making their assessments and decisions
concerning what the United States and Europe should do during this
new crisis in Crimea, would consider these historic realities.
Understanding the Times

105. The results of the Treaty of Paris, 1856, which ended the Crimean War,
included that Wallachia and Moldavia were moved from Russian rule
and placed under the Muslim Turks.

106. The boundaries of Ukraine, Moldavia, Bulgaria, Romania, Greece,
Turkey, Azerbaijan, Armenia, and Georgia were all changed
as a result of the Crimean War and the Treaty of Paris
- inevitably leading to future disastrous wars.

109. As Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn wrote:
"If we do not know our own
history, we will simply have to
endure all the same mistakes,
sacrifices and absurdities
all over again."
Learning From
History

110. "Now these things became our examples, to the intent that we should
not lust after evil things, as they also lusted…

111. now all these things happened to them as examples, and they were
written for our admonition…" 1 Corinthians 10:6-11

113. REFORMATION
SOCIETY
PO Box 74
Newlands, 7725
Cape Town
South Africa
E-mail:
info@ReformationSA.org
Web:
www.ReformationSA.org

114. Winston Churchill, referring to the Communists, declared:
"There is nothing they respect more than strength.
There is nothing they despise more than weakness!"

115. I have served the persecuted Church throughout Africa
and Eastern Europe.

116. I had the privilege of travelling on numerous occasions
with Rev. Bill Bathman:

117. in East Germany, Hungary, Yugoslavia, ministering in Poland,
Czechoslovakia, Romania, Bulgaria …

118. and Albania.

119. I have numerous friends in Eastern Europe
and have also ministered to Russians in Africa

120. including during the war in Angola

121. and in Mozambique.

122. When I was captured by communist forces in Mozambique in 1989,
I was escorted by Russian forces in Mi8-Hip helicopters

123. and then in an Antinov 26,
to Machava (SNASP Security)
Prison in Maputo.

124. Many of my East European friends think that the American
government is extremely hypocritical,.

125. considering that they betrayed over 100 million Christians in Eastern
European countries, to Stalin's Soviet Union
through the Yalta Agreement in 1945.

126. Ukraine was freed by Germany in 1917 and this independence was
recognised by Vladimir Lenin's Soviet Union in the Brest-Litovsk Treaty
of March 1918.

127. However, the Allies at the Versailles Treaty betrayed the Ukraine back
into the hands of the Soviet Union.

128. Many millions of Ukrainians were slaughtered under first, Lenin's
and then Stalin's brutal purges

129. Ukraine was again liberated by Germany in WWII,
but then betrayed by Allies through the Yalta Agreement back
into the blood-stained hands of Stalin's Soviet Union.

133. The Ukrainian Army continued to fight for their freedom and
independence for 10 years after the conclusion of WWII.

134. Units of the Ukrainian Army
were still operating, with field
artillery, fighting valiantly
against Soviet oppression, as
late as 1955.
Yet without receiving any
support from the Allies.

135. As our friends in Eastern Europe point out to us, without the
extravagant support of the United States, United Kingdom and Canada,
Stalin's Soviet Union could not have even survived Operation
Barbarossa in 1941.

136. Even before America entered WWII officially, vast quantities of
military hardware were being flown, shipped and trucked into Russia
via Alaska, Persia and Murmansk.

137. An official list of military hardware supplied by the USA
to the USSR from 1941, includes:
Gifts To Stalin

138. 7,056 tanks;

140. 14,795
military
aircraft;

144. 51,503 jeeps;
375,883 trucks;
35,170
motorcycles;

147. 8,071 tractors; 8,218 artillery pieces; 131,633
machine guns; 345,735 tonnes of explosives;

148. 1,981 locomotives; 90 cargo ships;

149. 4,478,000 tonnes of food supplies;

150. $1,078,965,000 of machines and equipment;

151. 2,670,000 tonnes of petroleum products; 49,860
tonnes of leather; 3,786,000 tyres;

152. 15,417,000 pairs of army boots; 106,893,000 tonnes of
cotton; building equipment valued at $10,000,910,000;

153. non-iron metals
802,000 tonnes;
along with 29
tankers; 433
combat ships, as
well as mobile
bridges, railroad
equipment,
aircraft radio
equipment and
many other items.

154. This does not include the very generous aid
given by Great Britain to the Soviet Union.
British and Canadian Aid
to the USSR

155. Britain supplied 5,800 aircraft,

156. 4,292 tanks and 12 minesweepers.

157. Canada supplied the Soviet Union with 1,188 tanks, 842 armoured cars,
a million shells and 208,000 tonnes of wheat and flour.

158. There is no doubt that without the Western aid the Soviet Union
wouldn’t have been able to survive a year.

159. However, no aid was supplied to the Ukrainian Freedom fighters,
or the Lithuanian forces, who were battling the most brutal
dictatorship in the history of the world.

165. So our friends in the Ukraine are extremely cynical about what NATO,
the EU and the US are involved in now, interfering in this
Ukrainian - Russian conflict.

166. Russian friends point out that there is no way that President Vladimir
Putin can allow Russia's vital ice-free port in the Crimea to fall out of
the control of the Russian Federation.

167. As Murmansk is up in the Arctic Circle and under ice much of the year
and Vladivostok is often frozen up with ice,
the Russian Navy's main ice-free ports are in the Crimea.

168. To compare what is at stake,
one should consider what
Americans would think if
California (with the strategic
San Diego Naval Base)
or Virginia (with Norfolk)
strategic naval bases were to
secede and be affiliated with
Russia. How acceptable
would that be?

169. Patrick Buchanan has dealt with
the consequences of short-sighted
policies and double-standards in
his books:
A Republic - Not An Empire;
and Churchill, Hitler and the
Unnecessary War - How
Britain Lost Her Empire and
The West Lost the World.

170. Russia today produces more
oil than any other country on
earth. With the price of oil,
that translates to massive
earnings.
Russia is now the second
largest oil exporter in the
world,
whereas the United States
is the largest oil importer
on earth,
followed by China.

171. Russia today produces more natural gas than any other country. Russia
supplies 34% of Europe's natural gas requirements.

172. While the United States debt is greater than its
Gross Domestic Product, (over 100%),
Russia's debt is only 8% of its Gross Domestic Product (GDP).

173. While the United States has a trade deficit of more than $500 billion
a year, Russia consistently runs a large trade surplus.

174. While the United States unemployment is officially 7.4%,
Russia's unemployment is 5.4%.

175. Since Vladimir Putin became president of Russia, the Russian GDP has
doubled. Today Russia is rated as the 6th largest economy in the world.

176. Industry in Russia has grown over 75% in the last 8 years.
Investments have increased by 125%.
The average salary in Russia has increased over 800%.

177. The middle class has grown from 8 million to 55 million
and people living below the poverty line have decreased
from 30% in the year 2000, to 14% in 2008.

178. Russia has also added over 570 metric tonnes of gold to their Reserves
over the last decade. It is pretty serious when the Russians are
warning the American's about the dangers of socialism.

179. Christians in Russia have expressed their shock at how America has
become a new evil empire.

180. Promoting abortion and privileges for perverts, with an aggressive
pro-homosexual agenda, bullying Africa governments to legalise
abortion and homosexuality,
and sending generous aid to radical middle-Eastern governments,
which severely persecute the Christian Church.

181. Most Americans seem oblivious to the devastating consequences of
their State Department's foreign policy: The bombing and burning of
churches in the Middle East that followed the Arab Spring, was in so
many ways funded and fuelled by US State Department policy.

204. The devastation of Christians in Iraq, where under the dictator,
Sadam Hussein, Christians were protected, but now under the
Islamic democracy installed by American forces,
Christians are severely persecuted.

205. After the American military succeeded in toppling
Saddam Hussein’s dictatorship in Iraq and making
possible the first democratic elections in that country,

206. the result was more radical Islamicists in power

207. and far more severe persecution of Christians
than had ever been experienced in Iraq before.

208. Midnight Christmas and New Year services were cancelled
in Baghdad, Mosul and Kirkuk as a consequence of the never ending
assassinations of Christians.

209. A blunt statement from the Chaldean Archbishop, Louis Sako, explained
that in future all Christian services had to be scheduled for the daylight
hours for security reasons. In 1932, one out of every five Iraqi’s was a
Christian. Today the number has dwindled to one in thirty three.

210. During one attack on a church in Bagdad, 52 were killed in what the
terrorists described as a Jihad to exterminate Iraq Christians…
an obscene nest of infidels…!

211. More than a million Christians have fled Iraq since 2003. These
realities are seldom understood in America.

212. Now the US government is channelling aid to Al Qaida affiliated
Islamic Jihadists in Syria, who are viciously persecuting Christians
in the areas that they control.

213. The secular military dictatorship of Assad had left the Christians alone.
At 6% of the population, the Christians in Syria were not considered a
serious threat and were actually protected from radical Islamicists.

214. Now by supporting Islamic insurgents who are turning Syria
into a catastrophic bloodbath, the West is destabilising one of the last
countries in the Middle East where Christians were experiencing
some stability and protection.

215. Xavier Lerma of Pravda in Moscow, wrote:
"Reagan called the Soviet Union the Evil Empire and rightly so. The
Soviet Union was the Russian people held hostage by the Communists.

216. Putin and Reagan listened to Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn.
Those who listen to their elders tend to be wiser.

217. Vladimir Putin allows Christianity to flourish, unlike the liberals in
America, who have their own warped idea of freedom from God and a
denial of evil's existence in the world.

218. "There is a reason why most public schools in America do not teach
the Bolshevik Revolution and its true consequences.

219. There are people in the West that want to remove everything related
to Christ from public view, just as the Communists did
during the Soviet enslavement of Russia.

220. 21st century Russia is proof that Christianity can prevail against
darkness and confusion. Today the liberals who control the West fear
Putin as though doomsday was tomorrow. It is not a nuclear threat,
but rather a spiritual renewal that threatens them.

221. It is not Putin, but Russia's Christianity they fear. Rather it is Christ they
truly fear and hate. They tried to persuade Americans by scaring
everyone with ideas of Putin as the evil KGB out to destroy the world…

222. They demonized Putin because it is not our world,
but their liberal world that is in danger of being destroyed.

223. "How can conservative media sources in America,
who claim to be Christian, ignore their Christian brothers in Russia,
who are now successful?

224. Martyrs they ignore and the blood that was shed to restore the
Christian Church in Russia. They are con-artists playing the
conservative side as fools while the liberals enslave the rest.

225. Devout Russian Christians are on the march… not like the Communist
Soviet Union, who spread wars like Obama and the US are doing now.

226. These Russians are like disciples of Christ, who lovingly reach out to
their brothers and sisters, helping men and women in darkness,
enslaved by a materialistic society, who are truly in need of Christ."

227. Xavier Lerma writes that the reason Western media are demonizing
President Vladimir Putin in Russia, is because they have passed laws
strengthening the penalties for "propagating homosexuality amongst
minors, and for insulting peoples' religious convictions in public."

229. The so-called Gay Propaganda Bill introduces fines for propaganda
of non-traditional sexual relations to minors,
including on the media, on the internet and via viral adverts.

230. Under this new law, lesbian, gay, bisexual and transvestite (LGBT)
rallies are prohibited, as is the distribution aimed at forming
non-traditional sexual morality in children.

231. Fines and imprisonment are prescribed for the propagation of
homosexuality in Russia. The All Russia Public Opinion Centre in June
showed that 88% of Russians support this amendment to the law.

232. It is an incredible irony that religious freedom is under assault
by the US Democratic Party and government while the
Russian government is printing Bibles to place in hotel rooms!

233. It is an incredible reversal of fortunes that the countries
behind what used to be the Iron Curtain, now have
some of the most dynamic Christian Churches
and the highest percentage of Church attendance in Europe.

234. It would appear that Western decadence, immorality, materialism,
compromise and superficiality in Churches and shallow, sensational
entertainment, have been more deadly to the Church than virulent
atheist propaganda and vicious communist persecution in the East.

235. Today there are more Evangelical, born-again Christians in Russia than
in any other country in Europe. The Ukraine has the second largest
group of Evangelical Christians in Europe, followed by Romania.

236. When Russians enjoy more religious freedom in public
than Americans, then something is seriously wrong.
When Russians expressed their concern about
lack of freedom and spiritual discernment in America,
we should be very concerned.

237. "Should you help
the wicked
and love those
who hate
the Lord?
Because of this
the wrath of
the Lord
is upon you.“
2 Chronicles 19:2

238. The question has been asked, with Russia annexing the Crimea,
just how far does Russia's territorial ambitions extend?

239. It is possible that Russia will attempt to integrate Moldova, which is on
the Western border of Ukraine separating it from Romania.

240. This would effectively surround the Ukraine. There already is a Russian
military presence in the Trans-Dniester region of Moldova.

241. In 2008, Russian troops invaded two provinces of Georgia to defend
the safety of ethnic Russians in South Ossetia and Abkhazia.

242. The West threatened sanctions. Instead Russian troops remain in both
regions and sanctions were never put into place.

243. Kazakhstan is an oil-rich country in central Asia. It has a huge
population of ethnic Russians which could prompt Russian
intervention in at least the Northern regions of that country.

244. Belarus is strongly allied with Russia and 1.2 million Russians live in
Belarus (11% of the country's population).
As Belarus is already an ally of Russia, it is unlikely that Russia would
see the need to move on that country at all.
None of those countries are members of NATO.

245. Speculation that Vladimir Putin could target the Baltic States seems
unwarranted as each of them are members of NATO and contain only
minorities of Russians.

246. Estonia has 25% Russians, Latvia has 27% Russians and Lithuania,
less than 6% Russians.

247. Crimea is considered absolutely essential to Russia's security,
whereas the Baltic States are not.
However, in Crimea, Russians are 1.5 million of the total 2.2 million
population.

252. "Finally, brethren, pray for us, that the Word of the Lord may run
swiftly and be glorified, just as it is with you, and that we may be
delivered from unreasonable and wicked men; for not all have faith."
2 Thessalonians 3:1-2

253. THE TRUTH SETS FREE.
That is why it is absolutely essential
that we know the truth of history
to recognize the lies of propaganda..

254. We need to study the truth in the Bible

255. so that we can
be freed from the
deceptions
of the world.

256. “You shall
know the
truth and
the truth
shall make
you free.”
John 8:32

267. Frontline Fellowship
PO Box 74
Newlands
7725
Cape Town
South Africa
E-mail: admin@frontline.org.za
Web: www.frontline.org.za

272. Photo Album
by Joshua