The Russian World

Eight months after the start of the war, with winter looming, what are the ways out of a possible apocalyptic scenario? To stop the madness as Pope Francis has repeatedly pleaded would require looking to the present and the future rather than the past. Although unlikely, a victory by one of two sides can only guarantee permanent divisions. Instead, we should throw off hypocritical masks and put on the table what we really want.

The great Russian writer Viktor Erofeev likened the president - with his resentments and war manias - to 'a street thug' seeking to retake the world and vengence all the humiliations suffered. 'Russophobia' is one of the main motivations for Putin's war, but the problem is that it is not a sentiment peculiar to opponents, but a part of the 'Russian soul' itself

This year’s Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to Belarusian Ales Bialiatsky, Russia’s Memorial movement, and Ukraine’s Centre for Civil Liberties to honour their worldview, which radically differs from the exaltation of the “sovereign" identities that led to war. The only answer to any “hegemony” lies with the defence of freedom, peoples, and individuals.

Amid sporadic protest and resistance , resignation seems to predominate in Russia today. Russians are afraid of losing Putin because they do not know what may await them next. Kirill's opacity and Orthodox theologian Georgij Kočetkov's prophecy: "Let each of us learn to live in Christ, so that we are not ashamed of our faith and our lives... We must seek the way of service to God and neighbor, even if there is an enemy before you."

The "religion of fire" has devastated and destroyed hundreds of churches, while Kirill has announced a new plan to restore buildings destroyed by bombs, he prayed for.

The death of Gorbachev and Queen Elizabeth, the Pope in Central Asia, the war in the Caucasus and the Ukrainian counteroffensive, Xi Jinping's trip: all events that evoke the end of a era, to make way for a world as yet to be described.

Without “foreign agents” Russia would not be Russia, starting with the metropolitans sent by Constantinople to Christianise Kievan Rus'. Perhaps no country can truly be itself without influences from near and far.

Opening up to religious freedom was not part of the initial reform programme. It was the events following the Černobyl disaster that forced the secretary-president to change his attitude to the point of reaching the harmony he established with John Paul II. But the Russians blamed him for the end of the USSR and renunciation of its role as a world power.

In two recent speeches President Putin and Moscow Patriarch Kirill speak again of the war not just against Ukraine but the entire West, with its model of society that places "absolute value on individual choice." A political, moral and spiritual challenge.

In Russia, Western sanctions are starting to bite. Putin and his acolytes have de facto privatised the country, and consider it their property. The ongoing transformation is falling on the majority of the population, deprived of any say in the matter.

Following in the footsteps of John Paul II, Francis is set visit the former Soviet republic from 13 to 15 September to take part in the Congress of Leaders of World and Traditional Religions. His agenda includes a meeting with Kazakh President Tokayev while a second tête-à-tête with Russian Orthodox Patriarch Kirill is a real possibility.

A moral counter-revolution, as some Russian media call it, is the global and declared aim of the war in Ukraine; for this reason, it has touched a sensitive nerve in the West, much more than the geographical proximity between NATO forces and those of neo-Soviet Russia.