Here’s what we wrote to the minister of our local independent chapel (where M used to play the organ before they swapped God for Covid)
Dear xxxxx
We hope you and yours are well.
We’ve noticed an addition to the chapel’s notice board signalling support for ‘Ukraine’. Here’s what we wrote to High Peak buses on this very topic the other day:
Good afternoon.
My wife and I were disgusted at the appearance of war propaganda notices on your buses in the High Peak on the 199 and 61 services we used on Tuesday 15th. Your business is the provision of public transport, not trumpeting your support for one side in an armed conflict between strangers taking place thousands of miles away.
If you had lost members of your family in the war against Nazism you would not be so eager to ‘stand with’ people whose government and armed forces include some who openly declare their admiration for the actions and policies of the Third Reich and whose actual and spiritual ancestors were happy to participate in some of the worst atrocities of the second world war against Jews, Poles as well as, of course, Russians.
These murderous thugs’ killing and besieging of the ethnic Russians of the Donbass ever since the overthrow of the elected government in 2014 has been condemned by the UN. Last year, for instance, the 32nd report of the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) updated its chronicle of Ukrainian human right violations against civilians in the Donbass region, directly implicating the Ukrainian army, the National Guard, the Security Service of Ukraine, Far-Right militias and other power structures.
According to the UN High Commissioner, when compared to the previous period, there was a 51% increase in Donbass casualties between February 1 and July 31 2021, accounting for 62 killed and wounded civilians. 81% of civilian deaths were the result of Ukrainian shelling and more than 80% of hits during the reporting period led to destruction. Among the victims were young children. The number of ceasefire violations from February 1 to July 31 increased by 369%. With these harrowing figures, there have been at least 3,390 confirmed civilian deaths since April 14, 2014.
With Ukrainian General Oleksandr Pavlyuk admitting that the military intentionally shelled civilian infrastructure in Donbass, thus violating the Minsk agreements, there is good reason to believe that the UN overall casualty figure of about 7,000 is grossly underestimated as not all civilian casualties are reported. For example, in the 2014-2015 winter season, many lonely old people died in the remote settlements of Donbass. There were also cases of starvation and suicide in large cities.
Part of the reason for many unaccounted deaths is because Ukraine stopped paying pensions, froze bank cards and imposed a humanitarian blockade against Donbass. UN estimates do not highlight these civilian losses due to the inability of being able to account for a huge region that faces constant population displacement. There is also the concealment of statistics by military and civilian authorities on both sides of the front. Therefore, there are many deaths that remain unaccounted for.
As for shelling, for the period from February 1 to July 31, the UN mission recorded an 81% increase of incidents by Kiev’s forces against Donbass. The Ukrainian military targeted power supply facilities, educational institutions, water supply and sanitation facilities, gas supply infrastructures and hospitals.
But you think you know better than the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights: your company’s policy is to tell the world that it supports ‘Ukraine’. Useful idiots hardly covers it. Please reconsider and remove these supposedly fashionable but actually inappropriate and embarrassing virtue signals from your buses.>
Sincerely,
xxxx & xxxxx
How much more inappropriate and embarrassing it is to see support for ‘Ukraine’ being offered by a Christian congregation here! We can only suppose that you have been taken in by the official propaganda. Information such as that given above (the UN report of late last year) is not broadcast here. Are you aware that the ethnic Russian people of East Ukraine, many of whom worship in the Russian Orthodox tradition and whose first language is Russian, were recently forbidden the use of their mother tongue for official and educational purposes? Its not just these peoples’ lives and livelihoods that have been being taken by the Nazi-dominated Ukraine government, its their culture too.
A few weeks ago President Zelensky raised the stakes on his campaign for Ukraine to be accepted into NATO by stating his desire for the Ukraine to be equipped with nuclear weapons, the implication being that they were required with Russia in mind. This provocation may well have been the final straw for the Russian government.
How shameful to publicly associate the xxxxxxx congregation with this evil. Please bring this to everyone’s attention and think again!
With all best wishes,
xxxx & xxxxx
We noticed today the bus signs have gone. at least from the 2 we saw… You never know!
