NOTE FROM THE PUBLISHER: Christian Kiev
Regnery, Alfred S.
NOTE FROM THE PUBLISHER Christian Kiev BY ALFRED S. REGNERY WIRES DON'T DIE EASILY. Thus, the successful 11J Vladimir Putin and his network of old Soviet election—finally—of Viktor Yushchenko is...
...Religious liberty is a powerful force in the minds of men, and was alive and well in the Ukrainian elections, according to Aikman...
...The successful election of a pro-West, free market, democratic government in Ukraine may spell the last chapter in the disintegration of the Soviet Union...
...Russia and Ukraine are a bit like the U.S...
...The Ukrainian people are familiar with religious repression, which was practiced unmercifully by the Soviets...
...David Aikman reports what the Western press ignored: Religious liberty turned out to be a major factor in Viktor Yushchenko's victory when it became apparent to millions of Ukrainians that a Moscow-approved government would mean toleration of only the Russian Orthodox Church and continued religious repression of all others...
...As David Aikman points out in his fine piece on the influence exerted by non-Orthodox Christians in the recent elections in Ukraine, Putin, without a puppet in Kiev, will undoubtedly meddle in Ukrainian affairs in new ways...
...Ukrainian Catholics survived a long history of Russian or Soviet control of their country and attempts to eradicate their church...
...But like empires, beliefs, particularly religious ones, don't disappear easily, and the Catholic Church survived, underground, emerging finally as the USSR unraveled...
...1.: The Ukrainian people are familiar with religious repression, which was practiced unmercifully by the Soviets...
...and Canada—a similar if not almost identical ethnicity of population, a very long common border, massive economic ties, similar religions, language, and cultures, and much more...
...It is believed that the Speaker of the Parliament is considerably less pro-West than Mr...
...One wonders how many former KGB agents (and perhaps current ones), how many former military officers, undercover agents, party officials, bureaucrats, and assorted influence peddlers from the old Soviet Union must still be operating in Ukraine...
...There's little doubt that these gangsters tried to poison Yushchenko with Dioxin...
...Defections by clergy and entire congregations from Russian Orthodoxy began in the fall of 1989, and continued for several years thereafter...
...During the same time, Moscow tolerated, and perverted, the Orthodox Church to the point that it became little more than a tool of the state...
...Thus, the successful 11J Vladimir Putin and his network of old Soviet election—finally—of Viktor Yushchenko is a great victory and blow to Russian President thugs...
...Yushchenko, and so one of Putin's 6 THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR March 2005 first moves will be to manipulate Ukrainians into shifting power from Yushchenko to the Parliament...
...Putin overplayed his hand and may have lost the battle...
...Moscow was using its bag of dirty tricks to try to keep a reliable regime in power, comically evident in Putin calling Yanukovich, Moscow's stooge, to congratulate him on his victory before the votes were even counted...
...But the war over the future of Ukraine is long from concluded...
Vol. 38 • March 2005 • No. 2
