Moscow Patriarchate Denounces as Heresy Call by Senior Russian General to Draw on Traditional Values of Both Orthodox Christianity and Islam

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Feb. 16 – In a recent book, Lt.Gen. Apti Alaudinov, the deputy head of the Main Military-Political Administration of the Russian defense ministry, suggested that Moscow combine the best ideas of Orthodoxy and Islam which support traditional values against those who oppose such values.

            That has brought a sharp rejoinder from Sergey Fufayev, the deputy head of the Moscow Patriarchate’s missionary department. He has denounced Alaudinov’s call as “heresy” and as  form of the kind of syncretism among faiths that the Russian Orthodox Church has always opposed (ng.ru/ng_religii/2026-02-16/9_612_syncretism.html).

            Alaudinov clearly intended that such sharing of ideas about values would help traditional Christianity and traditional Islam come together to fight those in the West challenging those ideas; but Fufayev, speaking for the ROC MP, has made it clear that Christians and Muslims can cooperate but that Orthodox Christianity cannot allow any admixture of Islam in its teachings.

Huge New Detention Center near Moscow will Make It Easier for Kremlin to Hold More Russians without Trial and Harder for Those Held There to Defend Themselves

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Feb. 14 – The Russian authorities have started the construction of what will be that country’s largest preliminary detention center. Planned to hold 4,000 inmates awaiting trial or sentencing, the facility is located 71 kilometers from the center of the capital, far from public transport.

            That will give the Kremlin the opportunity to detain more Russians not yet tried or sentenced without the risk of protests and to deprive them of their ability to defend themselves by making it difficult for defense lawyers to reach them on a regular basis (novayagazeta.eu/articles/2026/02/14/za-71-i-kilometr).

            This new super-sized detention center near the Russian capital follows the building of an equally large one just outside of St. Petersburg and is part of a plan, announced in 2024 to build such facilities across the country to replace smaller detention facilities that has long been in use (windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2025/08/moscow-closing-prison-camps-but-it-is.html).

            Conditions in Russian detention centers, where those arrested are often kept for extended periods, are notoriously bad, far worse than in many prisons and prison camps. They are understaffed and under-serviced, with lawyers often forced to wait for many hours to meet with their clients. 

            This is yet another example of the way in which the Putin regime under cover of declarations about modernization of the Russian prison system is not only enriching its friends and giving it more scope for repression but ensuring that arrests and not just convictions are likely to become more widespread, yet another way Russia is becoming ever more authoritarian.

Pope Leo’s Meeting with Head of Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church Calls Attention to Role of That Denomination Not Only in Ukraine but Across Former Soviet Space

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Feb. 13 – On February 12, Pope Leo XIV received at the Vatican Major Archbishop Sviatoslav Shevchuk, the head of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church, the second meeting the two have ad since Leo became leader of the world’s Roman Catholics and one that called attention both to the Vatican’s role in Ukraine, and the UGCC’s role there and elsewhere.

            Since Putin launched his expanded invasion of Ukraine in 2022, the papacy has carried out a quiet humanitarian effort in Ukraine as well as calling for an end to the fighting and negotiations toward a just peace (zenit.org/2026/02/13/the-leader-of-the-ukrainian-catholic-church-the-largest-church-in-communion-with-rome-is-received-by-the-pope/).

            Pope Leo reportedly reaffirmed that commitment at his meeting with the UGCC leader, who both welcomed that and emphasized that the UGCC is active not only in Ukraine but is represented across the world. In all places, it remains subordinate to Rome but retains its Byzantine liturgy.--

            If the UGCC – which is all too often referred to as the Uniates – is recognized for its role in the religious and political life of Ukraine, the larger role it has in the world often is ignored; and that is a mistake because its role beyond the borders of Ukraine has become increasingly important over the last decade.

            Among its most important roles in the former Soviet space is the way its churches are serving as a half-way house between those leaving the Russian Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate are joining UGCC parishes in Kazakhstan in hope of eventual Orthodox autocephaly there (windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2025/01/uniate-churches-in-kazakhstan-help.html and windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2024/07/orthodox-in-kazakhstan-seeking.html).

            Moscow is anything but happy about that, but its anger about the UGCC goes much deeper. After Putin illegally seized Ukraine’s Crimea in 2014, Moscow Patriarch Kirill laid the blame for Ukraine’s opposition on the UGCC and its alliance with Orthodox groups in Ukraine committed to autocephaly there (windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2015/07/moscow-patriarch-blames-uniatism-not.html).

Putin’s War is Why So Many Russians are Suffering in the Dark, Cold and without Water, ‘Important Stories’ Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Feb.16 – The independent Important Stories portal says that since the start of Putin’s expanded war in Ukraine, 78 percent of Russia’s federal subjects have significantly reduced their spending on housing infrastructure, a major reason why so many Russians in these regions are suffering in the dark, the cold and without running water.   

            To meet the unfunded mandates that Moscow has imposed on the regional governments, the latter have been forced to make cuts in repairing and updating infrastructure and that has contributed mightily to the disasters in Russia this winter (istories.media/stories/2026/02/16/za-vremya-voini-78-rossiiskikh-regionov-znachitelno-sokrashchali-raskhodi-na-zhkkh/).

            The world including many Russians of good will have reacted with horror to the way in which Putin’s bombing campaign has left so many Ukrainians in the dark, without heat and without running water; but there has been far less understanding that Putin has launched an almost equally horrific but completely unacknowledged operation against his own people.

            What makes this development especially appalling is that Russians have seen their utility bills skyrocket over the same period; but it is becoming clear that the moneys collected by the authorities are not going to ensure that they have the services they thought they were paying for but rather for Putin’s war, an outcome none of them can be happy about.

            And it seems likely that recognition of this fact as it spreads will give rise to references to what Russians earlier called the Kremlin’s proclivity to engage in the “bombing of Voronezh,” a reference to the Putin regime’s inflicting of pain on its own people in order to put the Kremlin in a position to do so against others as well. 

Kremlin’s Ban on Open Discussion of Federalism Leading to Radicalization of Ethnic and Regional Movements, Pylayeva Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Feb. 16 – Lana Pylayeva, a Komi activist who is a member of the platform at PACE for dialogue with Russian democratic forces, argues that the Kremlin’s ban on open and honest discussion of federalism is unintentionally leading to the radicalization of ethnic and regional groups in the Russian Federation.

            If the Russian authorities permitted such discussions, she says, there would be a far greater chance that the various groups could build bridges among all groups rather than as now each retiring to their own regional or ethnic group (idelreal.org/a/demontazh-moskvotsentrizma-chlen-platformy-pase-lana-pylaeva-o-tom-zachem-rossii-razgovor-o-dekolonizatsii/33675197.html).

            And while the history of these issues means that any opening of discussions will be difficult and require a long time to produce results on which many if not most groups can agree, the failure of the Putin regime to allow such discussions, a continuation of Soviet practice, makes disagreement and fissiparousness more likely. 

            Everyone, ethnic Russian and non-Russian and Muscovite and regionalist, must recognize that “Russia is after all an empire; and the policy which it conducts in relation to all regions and in particular to representatives of indigenous peoples is a colonial policy,” Pylayeva says. 

            These problems are exacerbated, she continues, because “now, a large part of the information which circulates both in Russian opposition and foreign media is most often information which is taken from federal sources,” that is, “it is information which focuses on what is happening in Moscow” and is inevitably “Moscow-centric.”

            All that helps the Kremlin block discussions about federalism and how Russia might be transformed to better reflect all its residents and not just those within the ring road.

Russians Now Equally Divided as to Whether They Can Trust Others, with Young and Those who Think Their Country is Going in the Wrong Direction Less Likely to Do So, Levada Center Polls Show

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Feb. 13 – According to a December 2025 Levada Center poll, 50 percent of Russians say that they believe it is possible to trust the majority of others, while 46 percent say the opposite, figures that show a slight increase in willingness to trust from 2020 when the numbers of those willing to trust others fell sharply.

            A higher percentage of those who are young, have lower incomes and think the country is going in the wrong direction are more likely to say Russians shouldn’t trust one another than those who are older, have higher incomes or think that Russia under Putin is headed in the  right direction (levada.ru/2026/02/13/uroven-mezhlichnostnogo-doveriya-v-dekabre-2025/).

            That is yet another obstacle that opponents of the Kremlin leader must overcome to organize protests or opposition groups, an obstacle that is seldom considered by those who discuss why the level of protests and opposition activity in the Russian Federation at the present time are as low as they are.

Russia’s Fate Being ‘Decided by the Economy and Not with the Seizure of Some Village in Ukraine,’ Kalashnikov Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Feb. 13 – Maksim Kalashnikov, a Russian commentator who favors an even more aggressive approach to Ukraine than that being conducted by the Kremlin, says that it is a mistake to think that Russia’s fate is being decided on the frontlines in Ukraine. In fact, it “is now being decided by the economy” which is in increasingly disastrous shape.

            The war in Ukraine has exacerbated the economic problems of the country and put it on course to something like 1991 or even 1917, he says, in the course of urging Moscow’s top leadership to recognize this reality and take steps to change it before it is too late (dialog.ua/war/328733_1771012157).

              “What matters,” Kalashnikov says, “is what happens to the budget, production and enterprises rather than whether we’ve captured another Bolshaya Khrenovka. And the situation here is dire” not least because of the West’s imposition of ever more severe sanctions and moves against Russian sales of raw materials abroad.

              But unfortunately, the Z-blogger concludes, what is likely to happen is exactly the reverse of what should: “the Kremlin will drag things out until disaster strikes and only then will it try to negotiate with the West on what will be ever more unfavorable terms.”  Russian elites need to recognize this looming disaster and take action.