On May 17, a decision was made to ban Russian postal services and social networks in Ukraine, including VKontakte, Odnoklassniki, Yandex and MailRu. The decision provoked a flurry of emotions in the network - both supporters and ardent opponents of such a move.
This week, the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine introduced into the agenda two bills concerning the activities of the church, "the control center of which is located on the territory of the aggressor country". The Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate saw in these documents a direct threat to itself and began to operate at all levels: from the statements of Patriarch Cyril to the protest of the grandmothers under the Rada.
The "observer" asked to share his opinion on the advisability of decisions taken in Ukraine, the Russian political scientist, journalist, political figure Andrei Piontkovsky.
The politician proposed to combine both topics, because, in his opinion, they are extremely intertwined.
I want to combine these two questions, because they are about the same thing. Both the Moscow Patriarchate and the Russian social networks controlled by the FSB are very powerful tools of the aggressor state - the Russian Federation - that is waging war with Ukraine, the so-called hybrid war.
The information war is a part of it, and the activities of the Moscow Patriarchate and social networks are a vivid manifestation of this information ideological struggle.
Gundyaev and his priests do not justify the Russian aggression - they continuously "consecrate" the weapons that Ukrainians are killing, they "bless" the bandits - these "motors", which they collected from all Russian car washes and sent to Donbass.
As for social networks, against the closure of which the US State Department and human rights organizations protest, their owners openly and with pride admitted that they respond to any requests of the FSB and are pleased to do so as loyal Russian patriots.
If Gundyaev's priests play a big role in the ideological fooling of part of the Ukrainian population, then social networks are, moreover, also an ideal tool for purely intelligence work through them.
When the state is at war with the second or third most powerful military power, the closure of social networks is the most natural reaction: to deprive the enemy of such instruments of aggression.
By the way, it is no accident that NATO - people who think in military categories that know what war is - unlike other Western organizations did not succumb to this demagoguery about restricting personal freedom. When the war is on, information of the enemy must be stopped.
But I want to add another. It is no coincidence that such views arose in the West. A significant reason for them is given by Ukraine itself. First, why these measures were not adopted three years ago? Secondly, why do many other channels of Russia's influence go unpunished?.
For the second time I want to ask the Ukrainian audience: why such a sworn enemy of the Ukrainian people, one of the organizers of the murders on the Maidan, the organizer of the war, whose arms to the elbow in the blood - Medvedchuk - are not only free. He is a prominent statesman of Ukraine. On the instructions of the president, he participates in some negotiations. What can be Medvedchuk's negotiations with the Russian side, when is this one hundred percent agent?.
Fully understanding and approving these measures, I want to say that they are: a) belated, and b) incomplete. And in relation to the same Medvedchuk, and in relation to the same Akhmetov.
Therefore, they cause such a sometimes controversial reaction in the West.
Should the UOC-MP be banned in Ukraine? Now we are talking about those laws that are being discussed. Let's see how effective these measures will be.
You see, the thing is, you can not forbid people from believing in something. It is necessary to forbid this organization to go beyond its purely religious activities and really participate in the war against the Ukrainian state.
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