Here is a Russian priest in front of the Church on The Blood of All Saints in Yekaterinburg. He is preaching to people on this video to come visit a pipe that was recently installed by this church.
What is this pipe about? More than a month ago, during their campaign to capture Sudzha in the Kursk Oblast, Russians tried to encircle Ukrainian troops and catch them unprepared from their rear. To achieve this, they walked down the gas pipe that was near the city. Of course, Ukrainians got aware of this plan. Upon leaving the pipe on the other side, the Russians got duly slaughtered.
Now, this story with the pipe accrued the status of a religious myth for Russians. The pipe itself became sacred with songs and verses being written about it. On the video the priest says, "Now this pipe is here. You can come visit and walk down it. So that you can feel what our brave soldiers had to go through for our country..." Essentially, he is calling them to make a pilgrimage... to the pipe.
And in the second video you can see Russians heeding the call of the priest. The pipe at the Church on the Blood of All Saints has already become a popular destination. As the priest has called upon, devout Russians enter the pipe, walk it till the end and emerge on the other side imbued with patriotism and a titillating feeling of having discovered the true meaning in life. They emerge with the joy of belonging to the "Russian world", the joy of having experienced the struggles of their soldiers and whatever...
As I have been saying for a long time, the war Russia wages against Ukraine is not about territory, geopolitics or whatever. And it's not only about Ukraine either. For Russians, this is a Holy War, comparable in the intensity of feeling with Crusades and Jihad. Russia is currently in a period that is equivalent to the 11th-12th centuries in Western Europe or 7th-8th centuries in the Middle East. Both of those periods were characterized by intense religious fervor coupled with militancy directed against an object of hatred.
For Russians, their war in Ukraine is a religious war. That's why religion is tightly coupled to, and in fact is perfectly congruent with, militarism in Russia, as this episode among many others shows. Their object of hatred, their "infidels" are the West, which they call "satanic", "degenerate" etc. Russia is involved in a Crusade against the Western Civilization, pure and simple. And Ukrainians for them are "heretics", who have abandoned the religion of the Russian World and joined the "infidels".
You cannot have a deal with someone who views you as an infidel or heretic. You cannot have peace with someone who views your very existence as unjustified - in fact, sinful. If someone is labeled as an "infidel", and even worse - "heretic", the only way for the attacker to resolve the conflict and achieve an inner peace is to either convert his object of aggression (often by force) or simply to kill them.
Russians will not rest until they eradicate the Ukrainian nation. Russians will not rest until they exact revenge on the West as they see it: this lust for revenge borne not out of something that the West has done, but simply because of what it represents for Russians. This lust for revenge is rooted in a deep inferiority complex that Russians have towards the West.
Europeans need to finally come to grips with the fact that Russians - not only Putin, oligarchs, Russian media or whatever - but the RUSSIAN PEOPLE are in a deadly Crusade against Europe. They want us all dead. And either we annihilate them, or they us. There is no middle ground. There cannot be a "settlement" or "peaceful coexistence" with someone who is in a Crusade against you. Therefore, Europe must mirror Russia. It's long overdue for Europe to rediscover its martial spirit and go on a Holy Crusade against Russians. Russia must be destroyed. Whatever it takes. Rusia delenda est.
