“If you keep going, you become an accomplice to death” is the lead to Pavel Filatyev’s story reported in Der Spiegel. * Filatyev, a recent Russian deserter, left the “special operation” in Ukraine after seeing atrocities by and incompetence in the Russian military. He recorded his thoughts in Zov. Among them is his bewilderment at the Kremlin’s use of “Special Operation” and its exclusion of the word war. I can't believe my ears when I learn that it is forbidden to say the word war. Seriously. War? What the hell else is this supposed to be?” Welcome to Propaganda and Groupthink, Pavel.
Pavel Filatyev was in close proximity to the horror of the fighting. He saw. He felt. The war had meaning on a personal level. That’s why he left. And it’s not as though he didn’t know what war was. He had been a Russian paratrooper and had reenlisted because his economic circumstances had taken a downturn. But…
The Kremlin’s disregard for life, even Russian lives, and its attempt to control the minds of the Russian people is nothing new. One need only go back to the way Russia fought Germany in World War II by throwing millions of soldiers at the Germans to overwhelm them with numbers.
Those of us who have never been in a battle can only imagine the horror of the moment. We might have empathy for the battle’s participants regardless of their affiliation, but that empathy occurs in another place, somewhere that is not in the proximity of suffering, wounding, and killing. Outside the boundary of battle, passing empathy, persistent indifference, and irrational rationalization prevail among those personally unaffected by the conflict. And chief among the indifferent and irrational rationalizers is Moscow’s Orthodox Patriarch Kirill. The Patriarch sermonized thus:
“If someone, driven by a sense of duty, the need to fulfill an oath, remains true to his calling and dies in the line of military duty, then he undoubtedly commits an act that is tantamount to a sacrifice. He sacrifices himself for others; and therefore we believe that this sacrifice washes away all the sins that a person has committed.”
Ah! The benefit of distance. Think the Patriarch, a Putin ally, has ever been to the front? Think he has seen dismembered bodies lying on the battlefield? Has he stood over dead civilians like the woman and child Russian soldiers killed by shelling their car? Has he walked the rubble of destroyed cities? Has he watched Russian soldiers shoot retreating Russians sick of being forced into the “meat grinder”? Has he considered that Ukrainians seemed largely settled within boundaries they called their own? Did they attack Mother Russia in February, 2022?
From his distant ecclesiastical throne, Patriarch Kirill compared soldiers’ sacrifices to those of Christ. Somehow he failed to see that there is a difference between a “just” and an “unjust” war and between a person forced to fight or face imprisonment and a willing Christ harming no one. Patriarch Kirill apparently places those Ukrainian soldiers’ sacrifices in a different category: Their defense of their homeland unjustified and the killing of thousands of Ukrainians a religious duty that will earn Russian soldiers their place in Heaven.
But the Patriarch isn’t the first among religious leaders proclaiming the salvation of soldiers. Think of the Islamic leaders who foster terror attacks and threaten entire countries. Think of Popes who sent crusaders to the Holy Land. What, we might ask, is wrong with the moral compass of religious leaders who cannot condemn outright the deaths of innocents?
If I had to guess, I would say that such leaders fail as peacemakers because they are removed from the physical realities of war. From a distance, they see noble acts; they see sacrifices made for their cause. The horror of war is remote. And as I have often written, “That which is not personal is meaningless.” I suppose I could add that when nothing is proximate, nothing is meaningful. Pavel Filatyev saw and understood because he was there.
*Der Spiegel online 5. Oktober 2022, 16.56 Uhr
Pavel Filatyev was in close proximity to the horror of the fighting. He saw. He felt. The war had meaning on a personal level. That’s why he left. And it’s not as though he didn’t know what war was. He had been a Russian paratrooper and had reenlisted because his economic circumstances had taken a downturn. But…
The Kremlin’s disregard for life, even Russian lives, and its attempt to control the minds of the Russian people is nothing new. One need only go back to the way Russia fought Germany in World War II by throwing millions of soldiers at the Germans to overwhelm them with numbers.
Those of us who have never been in a battle can only imagine the horror of the moment. We might have empathy for the battle’s participants regardless of their affiliation, but that empathy occurs in another place, somewhere that is not in the proximity of suffering, wounding, and killing. Outside the boundary of battle, passing empathy, persistent indifference, and irrational rationalization prevail among those personally unaffected by the conflict. And chief among the indifferent and irrational rationalizers is Moscow’s Orthodox Patriarch Kirill. The Patriarch sermonized thus:
“If someone, driven by a sense of duty, the need to fulfill an oath, remains true to his calling and dies in the line of military duty, then he undoubtedly commits an act that is tantamount to a sacrifice. He sacrifices himself for others; and therefore we believe that this sacrifice washes away all the sins that a person has committed.”
Ah! The benefit of distance. Think the Patriarch, a Putin ally, has ever been to the front? Think he has seen dismembered bodies lying on the battlefield? Has he stood over dead civilians like the woman and child Russian soldiers killed by shelling their car? Has he walked the rubble of destroyed cities? Has he watched Russian soldiers shoot retreating Russians sick of being forced into the “meat grinder”? Has he considered that Ukrainians seemed largely settled within boundaries they called their own? Did they attack Mother Russia in February, 2022?
From his distant ecclesiastical throne, Patriarch Kirill compared soldiers’ sacrifices to those of Christ. Somehow he failed to see that there is a difference between a “just” and an “unjust” war and between a person forced to fight or face imprisonment and a willing Christ harming no one. Patriarch Kirill apparently places those Ukrainian soldiers’ sacrifices in a different category: Their defense of their homeland unjustified and the killing of thousands of Ukrainians a religious duty that will earn Russian soldiers their place in Heaven.
But the Patriarch isn’t the first among religious leaders proclaiming the salvation of soldiers. Think of the Islamic leaders who foster terror attacks and threaten entire countries. Think of Popes who sent crusaders to the Holy Land. What, we might ask, is wrong with the moral compass of religious leaders who cannot condemn outright the deaths of innocents?
If I had to guess, I would say that such leaders fail as peacemakers because they are removed from the physical realities of war. From a distance, they see noble acts; they see sacrifices made for their cause. The horror of war is remote. And as I have often written, “That which is not personal is meaningless.” I suppose I could add that when nothing is proximate, nothing is meaningful. Pavel Filatyev saw and understood because he was there.
*Der Spiegel online 5. Oktober 2022, 16.56 Uhr
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