Moscow Must Take Harder Line Against West or Face Disintegration of Russia, Chaplin Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, December 27 – In a case of being not more Orthodox than the patriarch but rather more alarmist than almost anyone else even while playing to the Kremlin, Archpriest Vsevolod Chaplin, former head of the Synod’s department for relations with society, says Moscow must take a much harsher line against the West or face the disintegration of Russia.

            According to the churchman, the Kremlin’s line over the last two years has become ever weaker and more “hopeless. Yes we sometimes are able to respond to attacks with bright words or take actions in Syria, for example.” But otherwise, he says, Russia’s rulers have acted like “ostriches” with their heads in the sand.

            Everywhere one looks, Chaplin says, “Russia is yielding its positions” – in Ukraine, in the Far East, in diplomacy, education, and culture, and is failing to recognize that “too many” of Russia’s elites are “fatally dependent on the West” (vnnews.ru/social/72316-protoierej-vsevolod-chaplin-obvinil-kreml-v-bespomoshchnosti-i-predskazal-raspad-strany.html).

            If the Kremlin doesn’t change course, he continues, “terrible things” are going to happen, up to and including the disintegration of the country and its coming to be ruled by “a dictatorship” of someone installed by the West or “simply administrative chaos” designed to weaken and ultimately destroy Russia.

            This will involve, the churchman says, “the demise of a large number of people and harsh foreign rule. What are needed now,” he continues, “are not concessions” to the West as some are urging “but attacks.”