Ukraine churches provide shelter to victims of Putin's War

Litany for Ukraine: Holy saints and martyrs, pray for peace.

Echo report published by Karol Wojteczek in Aleteia:  

Families taking cover in our rectory: A priest reports from Ukraine during the unprovoked #PutinWar.

"This is not a war against Ukraine, but a war in the heart of Europe. We are all under attack. It is a war against the whole world."

“This is not a war against Ukraine, but a war in the heart of Europe. We are all under attack. It is a war against the whole world. Pray for us as we wait for good news, news of peace, because God is with us and is our greatest strength. We pray that He will convert hearts and crush them with the power of peace, not weapons,” Fr. Sergiei Palamarchuk, pastor of the Greek Catholic parish in Lisichansk in the Luhansk region, said in an interview with the Italian agency SIR.

The problem is that we know where to flee from, but we don’t know where to go.

According to SIR, the priest — speaking by phone — was on his way from Muratov to Lisichansk. He was bringing with him several families seeking shelter in his rectory. “Right now we are fleeing Muratov because there are too many weapons there. We see military vehicles, we hear the sounds of bombing and mortar shelling. The situation here was already not safe,” the priest said.

Stand With Ukraine: Підтримуйте Україну Pidtrymuyte Ukrayinu

“Many families have fled in cars, and we are the last ones to leave the area. Some, however, have stayed because they don’t know where to go. The problem is that we know where to flee from, but we don’t know where to go. We are getting bad news about Kiev, Kharkiv, so no city is safe at the moment. When we get to my house in Lisichansk, we will have to think about what to do and where to go,” the parish priest reported.

Thank you for your prayers and please pray for us. 

Do not stop praying for us.

Despite the difficulties in continuing the conversation, Fr. Sergei reconnected to deliver an appeal for prayers through the media.

“Thank you for your prayers and please pray for us. Do not stop praying for us. This is the greatest and most important thing. And one more thing. We must understand that this is not a war against Ukraine, but a war in the heart of Europe. We are all under attack. It is a war against the whole world. Pray for us as we wait for the good news to come, the news of peace, because God is with us and God is our greatest strength. We pray that he will convert hearts and humble them with the power of peace and not weapons,” the priest stressed.

According to the information reported by the media and confirmed repeatedly by Ukrainian services, fighting and evacuation of the population are ongoing in the Luhansk district.

Rich Lowry needs to find a real job because he is a terrible journalist!

Echo report published in RawStory by Tom Boggioni:

Steve Schmidt blows conservative out of the water for claiming Putin was 'frightened' of Trump

Following Russian President Vladimir Putin's (dangerously crazy!) - wrongminded-decision to send troops into Donetsk and Luhansk as part of his incursion into Ukraine, the National Review editor-in-chief Rich Lowry (ugh!) tweeted out that Putin likely made the move because Trump is out of office and the Russian strongman was "frightened' by the ex-president's unpredictability. (IMO Rich Lowry is guilty of journalistic opportunism. He either plagiarizes what he writes by lifting it from other sources - like EuroNews- or he just makes stuff up.)

Thank you! Schmidt has been extremely critical of former President Donald Trump, and of the GOP for supporting him. In June 2018, Schmidt renounced the Republican Party as "fully the party of Trump".

Lowry's stupidity, in turn, led to a scathing response from former the Republican campaign consultant Steve Schmidt, who let Lowry know, in no uncertain terms, that he regards Trump as "a whore ... who would sell out his country; her values and ideals for nothing but flattery."

As Lowry sees it, "The sheer unpredictably of Trump, his anger at being defied or disrespected, his willingness to take the occasional big risk (the Soleimani strike), all had to make Putin frightened or wary of him in a way that he simply isn’t of Joe Biden."

Schmidt begged to differ in a tweetstorm that began, "This is a world view I have never understood. Trump is the most predictable person in the world. He is as predictable as the Sun setting in the west and rising in the east. There is no mystery around Trump. How could there be? The idea that Vladimir Putin was kept guessing by Trump is lunacy."

He then added, "What Putin saw was strategic incoherence shaped by a vast ignorance of the world," before later adding, "Trump fetishized the world’s strongmen and lambasted our allies. He was as indifferent to repression abroad as he was to democracy at home. He was a Buffon set loose upon the stage and everyone played their part."

At the end, Schmidt took a veiled swipe at the longtime National Review editor by writing, "He [Trump] has blighted the culture for more than 40 tedious years. In all that time, it wasn’t until he got to Washington DC that he found marks naïve enough to believe there is an actual strategy to it all."

Maine Writer- Quick thinking from Steve Schmidt!

Mr. Schmidt gives expert advice from Twitter: "The United States should destabilize Putin by destabilizing the Russian elite. Make them pay the price. Financial, legal and immigration restrictions should be imposed immediately. Access to Western education should be shuttered to Russian nationals and Russian owned and flagged private vessels 🚢 should be refused anchorages in Western waters. There is still plenty of winter left in Moscow."

P.S. IMO: Rich Lowry should find a job as a night shift copy editor for Pravda.