UOC ban and the war with Russia: Prophets on the causes of military defeats

Photo: UOJ

Non-believers believe in chance, while Christians believe in God's providence. When certain events, seemingly unrelated, occur close in time, non-believers say it's a coincidence. But Christians see a cause-and-effect relationship that influences events on a spiritual level. A non-believer, especially someone committing unrighteous deeds, is often reluctant to admit, even to themselves, that their sin might be the cause of some misfortunes happening to them, their family or even their country, if they are a president or a ruler.

Let's recall the story of the exodus of the Israelites from Egyptian slavery. The Pharaoh disobeyed God's command and refused to let the Hebrews go after Moses' request. And then began the events that later became known as the Ten Plagues of Egypt. There were ten in total. Each time a plague ended, Pharaoh and the Egyptian elite repeatedly refused to release the Israelites. They convinced themselves that it was merely a coincidence, that the refusal to release the Hebrews and the calamities that befell Egypt were not connected. From a human perspective, all of this could be explained by natural factors. The plagues of frogs, gnats, locusts, livestock disease, and severe thunder with lightning – all of these could have happened naturally, without any connection to the decisions made by the Egyptian authorities. It took an extraordinary event for Pharaoh to finally understand that it was God, not nature, acting. When all the firstborn in Egypt died in one night, from humans to livestock, including Pharaoh’s own son, only then did the Egyptians realize that this was indeed God's doing, and that they should listen to His voice. Yet, even after the initial shock of this tragedy subsided, the Egyptians sent their army in pursuit of the Hebrews, intending to bring them back. Such is human psychology, or more precisely, the psychology of fallen human nature.

If we read the book of the prophet Jonah, we find that nothing at all was happening to the city of Nineveh. No hailstorms, no hurricanes, no fire raining down from heaven. A man simply came and said that Nineveh would be destroyed, and the people of the city believed him and began to repent. Nothing happened to the city. A modern-day non-believer would say that nothing was going to happen anyway, and that Jonah was just a convincing speaker. Yet, on a spiritual level, grand events were taking place. The people of Nineveh had built up sins for many years, possibly even centuries. When their iniquities filled the cup of God's patience, the Lord decided to destroy Nineveh. The verdict was clear and final: "Forty more days, and Nineveh will be destroyed!" (Jonah 3:4). In some incomprehensible way, all the people of Nineveh, from the king to the commoner, did not despair but began to repent of their sins and pleaded with God to have mercy on them: "Who knows? God may yet relent and with compassion turn from his fierce anger so that we will not perish" (Jonah 3:9). Their repentance was so sincere, and their prayer so powerful, that God changed His decision and did not destroy the city. "When God saw what they did and how they turned from their evil ways, he relented and did not bring on them the destruction he had threatened" (Jonah 3:10). God changed His decision! This has only happened a few times in human history. And outwardly, we repeat, nothing happened.

From this, we can conclude that the processes occurring in the spiritual world, which determine the fate of humanity, a nation, or an individual, may manifest in our visible reality as seemingly unrelated events or may not manifest at all. To connect these two dimensions – spiritual and worldly – one needs faith. And to correctly understand the cause-and-effect relationship between them, one must read the Holy Scriptures. Most often, God gives people hints, allows events to occur that are meant to instruct and guide them, point out their sins and mistakes and prevent something even more terrible and irreversible from happening. A person can see these hints, understand them and correct their ways. Or they can decide that everything happening is just a series of unrelated coincidences. In this case, the person hardens their heart and stubbornly rushes towards their own ruin. And it happens to them as the Lord said: "We would have healed Babylon, but she is not healed..." (Jeremiah 51:9).

Let’s compare the events that have taken place in Ukraine recently, and let each person decide for themselves whether these are coincidences or if there is a cause-and-effect relationship between them.

On 20 August 2024, the Verkhovna Rada passed a law banning the UOC (officially titled the "Law on Protecting the Constitutional Order in the Sphere of Religious Organisations"), and soon after, as if something somewhere had torn, bad news from the front began to flood in. The Kursk campaign no longer brought news that could be presented to the public as victories. Progress stalled, while losses continued. The Russians even launched a counteroffensive.

But the situation on the eastern front became much worse. The Russian army not only maintained pressure on the Donbas, but on the contrary, their pace of advancement increased. Almost every day, reports were published about the capture of new small settlements and the threat of encircling larger ones.

On 23 September 2024, the controversial law came into force. And on the same day, news agencies began to fill with reports like these:

"The situation for the Armed Forces of Ukraine (AFU) near Vuhledar has sharply deteriorated. Russian troops have broken through the Ukrainian defense line along the Kashlahach River to the west of Vuhledar, and the fighting is now less than a kilometer from the road to Bohoyavlenka, through which Vuhledar is supplied. If this road is cut off, only dirt roads will remain for logistics, and the city will actually be surrounded."
"Another area where Russian forces have significantly advanced is south of Selydove. The Deep State map shows that the Russians have cut the road between Selydove and Tsukuryno."
"The situation is also worsening for the AFU in Toretsk. According to Ukrainian military officer Stanislav Buniatov, 'the Russians are gradually pushing through our positions towards the southwestern part of the city and are trying to move towards the Zabalka-Nelepivka road to cut off Zabalka and Nahalivka from paved roads before the rainy season begins.'"
"Additionally, the AFU’s situation is deteriorating in the area of the Oskil River south of Kupiansk, reports Deep State."
"The enemy continues to advance toward the Borova–Kupiansk Uzlovyi–Kupiansk road, which is the main logistical route in that area."
"Ukrainians should 'morally and psychologically' prepare for the AFU’s retreat from Selydove, Toretsk, and Vuhledar, said military expert Kostiantyn Mashovets."
"Pokrovsk, meanwhile, could be lost by Ukraine within two or three months, according to a representative of a drone reconnaissance unit. He believes the city faces the same fate as Bakhmut due to constant shelling."

Thus, the negative trend became very clear at the end of August and has only intensified in recent days. If we look at the broader chronology of events, we cannot help but notice that serious setbacks on the front began around mid-summer and coincided with the Verkhovna Rada’s increased work on the law banning the UOC. And not just the Verkhovna Rada. Both the President and other high-ranking officials began to speak about further steps toward "spiritual independence" (read: the "destruction of the UOC"). At the same time, Russian invaders began to make significant advances in the Donbas. Perhaps, some will say this can be explained solely by military reasons, without any spirituality involved – that this happened because of the AFU’s start of the Kursk operation, which is draining our reserves. But why, then, did God allow our leaders to make this particular decision?"

If we look back, the connection between the persecution of the UOC and successes or failures at the front becomes even more apparent. Russia's full-scale aggression against Ukraine began on 24 February 2022. A few hours after the invasion began, Metropolitan Onuphry, the Primate of the UOC, declared his support for Ukraine's sovereignty and territorial integrity, urging Ukrainian citizens to defend their country. During the first 10 months of the war, statements from the authorities regarding the Church were mostly neutral, and suggestions to launch a campaign against the UOC were met with the response: “We will not allow the unity of the people to be disrupted or the situation to be destabilized from within.” During these 10 months, the following events occurred:

The plans for a quick capture of Kyiv failed spectacularly. Let us recall that, according to many Western politicians, Ukraine's capital was expected to hold out for only three days. The Americans were pleading with Zelensky not to risk his life and to evacuate to Lviv. They were even prepared to carry out this operation themselves. But Kyiv was not captured.
In March, the AFU pushed the enemy back from the capital, liberating Kyiv and then Sumy regions.
In early autumn 2022, the Kharkiv counteroffensive operation was brilliantly executed.
On October 1, Lyman was liberated.
On November 11, Kherson was liberated.
According to The Wall Street Journal, by October 2022, the AFU had captured 460 Russian main battle tanks, 92 self-propelled howitzers, 448 infantry fighting vehicles, 195 armored fighting vehicles, and 44 multiple-launch rocket systems. Numerous ammunition depots were also seized.

This is not a complete list of the AFU's successes, only the main ones. It is also worth noting that at this time, the AFU had no Western tanks, armored vehicles, long-range missiles like ATACMS or Storm Shadow, F-16 aircraft, or many other weapons now available. We had barely managed to persuade the Americans to provide us with HIMARS multiple-launch rocket systems and the Europeans to send a few dozen howitzers. Ukrainian military analysts were saying at the time that Russia was firing 20,000 artillery shells per day at Ukraine, which far exceeded the capabilities of the AFU. And yet, Ukraine achieved brilliant large-scale victories during this period.

Riding the wave of these successes, Ukraine’s leadership promised the people a quick victory in the war, and there was every reason to believe this. President Zelensky declared that 2023 would be the year of victory, and Commander-in-Chief Valerii Zaluzhnyi said the same. Kyrylo Budanov, head of Ukraine's military intelligence, promised that the AFU would enter the Crimea before the summer of 2023, and so on. The West continued to supply us with more and more weapons, and the expectations for the coming year were very optimistic. The West provided us with Leopard, Abrams, and Challenger tanks, artillery and ammunition, various types of armored personnel carriers, the most advanced air defence systems, long-range missiles, a multitude of other weapons, and most recently, F-16 aircraft. Yet, for some reason, the AFU's victories ceased. The highly publicised Ukrainian counteroffensive in the summer of 2023 ended, to put it mildly, unsuccessfully, as admitted by Commander-in-Chief Zaluzhnyi himself, who was soon dismissed from his post.

So, what happened?

Why, in 2022, were we able to reclaim our lands without most of this formidable Western weapons? Why did military commanders develop and execute brilliant operations? Why was Russia's situation so dire that the idea of using nuclear weapons to save Russia from defeat was circulating in the Russian information space? And why did everything change in 2023-2024, with the situation reversing completely?

It's time to compare events. The last major victory of the AFU: the liberation of Kherson on 11 November 2022. But already the next day, on 12 November, the Ukrainian authorities launched another wave of persecution against the UOC, this time unprecedented in its scale and severity. On this day, the first publication appeared claiming that some female parishioners in the Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra were singing a song with the words “Mother Rus' is awakening”. This spiritual chant is dedicated to the glorification of the Mother of God, not Russia, but the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) and the authorities quickly seized on this narrative. Zelensky made a statement, promising to deal with it and expel the “Russian world”. Soon after, a meeting of the National Security and Defence Council (NSDC) was held, where sanctions were imposed on certain hierarchs, and the Cabinet was tasked with drafting a law banning the UOC. The SBU conducted large-scale raids in the Lavra, as well as in other monasteries and eparchial offices, inciting a wave of hatred towards the UOC in society.

The steamroller of repression against the Church began to gain momentum. And the successes at the front came to an end. Defeats began.

Someone might say that this is a coincidence. But let’s open the Holy Scriptures and read what the prophets told us about exactly such situations. When the Jewish people turned away from God and indulged in idolatry, neighboring nations would come against them in war and defeat them.

Prophet Isaiah: “Alas, sinful nation, a people laden with iniquity, a seed of evildoers, children of corruption! They have forsaken the Lord, they have despised the Holy One of Israel, they are estranged backward. ... Your land is desolate, your cities are burned with fire; strangers devour your fields in your presence, and it is desolate, as overthrown by strangers” (Isaiah 1:4-7).

Prophet Jeremiah: “For behold, I will summon all the tribes of the kingdoms of the north, says the Lord, and they will come and each will set up his throne at the entrance of the gates of Jerusalem, and against all its walls, and against all the cities of Judah. And I will pronounce My judgments against them for all their wickedness, because they have forsaken Me, and have burned incense to other gods, and worshiped the works of their own hands” (Jeremiah 1:15-16).

Prophet Ezekiel: “Therefore thus says the Lord God: Because you have multiplied your iniquities more than the nations that are around you, you do not walk in My statutes nor keep My ordinances... behold, I am against you; even I will execute judgments in your midst in the sight of the nations. And I will do among you what I have never done before, nor will I do the like again, because of all your abominations. Therefore, fathers shall eat their sons in your midst, and sons shall eat their fathers; and I will execute judgments among you, and scatter all your remnant to all the winds” (Ezekiel 5:7-10).

History testifies that all these prophecies were fully fulfilled upon the people of Israel. Yet, for some reason, our leaders do not heed these warnings and believe that they can destroy God’s Church without consequences.

At the same time, they love to invoke the Lord’s name in vain, as if they have eternally secured His support, as if He is on their side by default, no matter what abominations they commit against the children of His Church. But this is not how it works. They can deceive themselves, the faint-hearted, and the unbelieving, but not the Lord. He does not squander signs, and He responds to them through the mouths of believers and through events on the battlefield.

The Lord clearly said: “Do not touch My anointed ones, and do My prophets no harm” (Psalm 105:15).

Was it really so hard to follow these commandments? Could they not have simply left the Church alone and allowed it to pray and help the country, the army and the civilians? This help was and continues to be immense.

Why did they have to begin persecuting the UOC and divide the Ukrainian people along religious lines? This is suicidal for any state even in peacetime, but in the midst of war – it is a guarantee of disaster. And we are witnessing it. Every blow against the Church turns into a misfortune at the front.

The main question is: what other calamities are necessary to bring our rulers to their senses?

One wants to believe that we will choose the fate of Nineveh, and not the cities and nations destroyed and brought low by God’s will because of their sins. There is still time. It is not too late to repent and turn away God’s wrath.

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