By Rostislav Ishchenko
Translated by Ollie Richardson & Angelina Siard
cross posted with https://www.stalkerzone.org/rostislav-ishchenko-brave-poroshenko-the-worse-it-is-for-him-the-more-dangerous-he-is-for-others/
source: https://ukraina.ru/opinion/20181211/1022049102.html

In recent days, in connection with the frank violation by Poroshenko’s regime of all international norms, and also of the articles of the Constitution and laws of Ukraine regulating relations between the church and state, experts and politicians often ask a question (not always having a rhetorical character): is he really not afraid of the consequences?

After all, any competent lawyer can prove a whole bouquet of criminal offences, among which the smallest one is the abuse of power and his own official authority.

I have to say that Poroshenko’s actions don’t surprise me. I am surprised by the questioning.

Let’s dissect the situation.

As is known, Poroshenko was a parishioner of this same Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate (UOC-MP) that he now so zealously pursues. It is supposed that he believed in God, otherwise he wouldn’t have visited church or served as a subdeacon. Now he has renounced this church and pursues it in support of schismatic and frank swindlers. Consequently, Poroshenko isn’t afraid of God’s judgement. So why would he be afraid of human judgement?! After all, God’s judgement decides the fate of the soul in eternity, while human judgement can punish you only once and, in comparison with eternity, for an imperceptibly small period of time. And even still, you have to be brought to court and your guilt must be proven.

But we will assume that Poroshenko only pretended to be churched to receive the support of parishioners of the UOC-MP in any elections, while in practice he was never a believing person and he isn’t afraid of God’s judgement.

In that case, let’s remember that accusations of usurping and abusing personal and office powers, war crimes, crimes against humanity, the organisation of mass corruption at the state level, and many other things – including banal theft from the budget and the the organisation of roguish foreign trade schemes – can anyway be made against Poroshenko (some, from 2014 onwards, some from 2015 onwards, and some from 2016 onwards). Taking into account the fact that the most harsh of these accusations have no limitation period, and persecution for them happens all over the planet, Poroshenko doesn’t risk anything new.

Once upon a time in certain countries people were sentenced to five and more death penalties (in Russia there is a joke about “ten years of execution”). But in reality it is possible to execute someone only once. In our time, except for separate special tribunals (for example, concerning Saddam Hussein), the death penalty isn’t appointed as a punishment at all. A person will be given a life sentence at maximum, and then they can be released in 10-20 years when the wave subsides.

So the new and new crimes committed by Poroshenko don’t at all worsen his situation – it already can’t get any worse. They are designed to improve it.

I will explain.

Poroshenko can’t win elections – any and anywhere. He needs to take the political struggle in Ukraine outside the limits of the quasi-legitimate process of presidential and parliamentary elections and to transfer the rivalry to the power plane [the application of physical force – ed]. But it is necessary to do this in such a way that Poroshenko can’t be accused of deliberately disrupting elections. The West relates to the Ukrainian elections extremely tremulously, and anyone who will openly encroach on them will become the enemy of the West. And all the elite, all the bureaucracy, and all law enforcement bodies will turn away from the enemy of the West in Ukraine. They didn’t collect, kopek by kopek, their fortunes and withdraw them out West just to fall under sanctions as servants of the “criminal regime” and “bloody dictatorship”, and to lose everything they gained by back-breaking toil.

I.e., falling into a violent tailspin must happen as if by itself and contrary to the “peacekeeping” efforts of Poroshenko.

Let’s look at what he is doing for this purpose.

Firstly, he provokes Russia into using weapons against the Ukrainian military, masking this provocation under a usual borderline incident in allegedly disputable waters. Notice that Poroshenko would receive many more corpses if he sent a couple of squadrons through the Russian border. They would be neutralised by artillery and aviation, but Russian troops wouldn’t go through the border towards Kiev.

So why did he do things precisely in this way? Because an obvious attack on Russian territory or even on the DPR/LPR would be impossible to sell to the West as the disproportionate reaction of Russia to an ordinary incident. In the first hypothetical scenario Poroshenko would be asked why he sent troops through the Russian border. In the second hypothetical scenario he would be asked why he violated the Minsk Agreements.

Even the reaction of the West to the provocation in the Kerch Strait turned out to be less sharp than Poroshenko had hoped for – it was rather indifferent. I think that it is precisely for this reason that the Verkhovna Rada sharply grew bolder and didn’t allow to impose martial law for 60 days across the entire territory of the country and to cancel elections. So, even in an incident in disputable (according to Kiev, which the West agrees with) waters, the West suspected the personal interests of Poroshenko were at play.

In this sense, provoking an interfaith conflict and even a religious war is the last card in the sleeve of Poroshenko. That’s why he is in a hurry with the “unifying congress in fancy dress” and opts to commit barefaced violations of the law, involving the SBU in the process of “convincing” bishops, priests, and parishioners of the UOC-MP to participate in Poroshenko’s spectacle.

After all, it is clear that behind-the-scenes intimidation, persuasion, and bribery would give Poroshenko more chances of being successful. People could pretend that they caved in not because of pressure or a bribe, but because they always sought autocephaly. Whereas in Poroshenko’s rendition any person who has self-respect, even if they through spiritual weakness are ready to back down out of fear or self-interest, will now be afraid to do it explicitly, bringing eternal shame to themselves.

That’s why evil always disguises itself as good, because its wants to be attractive. It is characteristic for a human to strive for the love and respect of the people around them, even subconsciously. Whereas Poroshenko leaves the traitors of the UOC-MP nothing but eternal shame and an ambiguous (subordinated) situation in the new structure. You think it’s a coincidence? Then why earlier were there no such “coincidences”?

It is because Poroshenko doesn’t need the UOC-MP’s consent to participate in Bartholomew’s sabbath, he doesn’t even need negotiations or autocephaly. He needs conflict – open and violent. That’s why people’s souls are being frankly spat on. That’s why all the laws of God and human are being violated. Feeling their correctness, Orthodox Christians should start to openly resist the godless and illegitimate authorities, which violate even their own laws.

It is precisely this cruel forceful standoff all over Ukraine with big bloodshed that is necessary for Poroshenko in order to legitimise the rejection of pseudo-democratic elections and to switch to an open dictatorship, for the sake of prolonging the agony of his regime. He has no other option. That’s why the congress in fancy dress was appointed for December 15th (martial law end on December 25th and there is a need to unleash a new phase of the civil war before it ends). That’s why Poroshenko is also not afraid that the opposition will be able to legally disavow his actions. It’s important for him that the West believes that the UOC-MP – the “fifth column of Putin” – attacked the Ukrainian state. More precisely, not especially believe, but be unable to avoid supporting the steps taken by the regime. After all, the West can’t allow Bartholomew, who submerged himself in the Ukrainian crisis up to his eyeballs and who sacrificed his authority in the orthodox world for its sake, to lose the fight for Ukraine to the UOC-MP. Moreover, if the uprising of Orthodox Christians in the name of their belief wins, then it’s not the regime of Poroshenko that will collapse, but a pro-West regime in Ukraine in any form. Poroshenko reasonably considers that, having provoked Orthodox Christians into resisting, he will be able to force the West to support the prolongation of his powers as the lesser of two evils, from the point of view of Washington, London, and Brussels.

I think that even if Poroshenko will succeed in everything, he will only prolong his agony for a few months, after which he will be torn to pieces by his own colleagues, because he is too greedy, boastful, false, and hated, and he’s the kind of dictator that is approximately the same as a chairman of a sobriety society. But Petro Poroshenko nevertheless has nowhere to retreat. By all accounts, even the Hague doesn’t want to put him in its prison. I.e., it’s not a case of him being torn to pieces – it’s a case of putting off as much as possible this “wonderful moment“.

Like a rat driven into a corner, battling for an extension of his worthless life by a couple of minutes, Poroshenko already threw everything into the fire chamber of this fight, including his family. Defeat is death for him, and victory will write everything off. And although the chances of victory are illusive, hope dies last.

And this is why he is dangerous.