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Ukraine's Fork In The Road

 

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Our friend Viktor from Wisconsin, now stuck in Ukraine, was working on a new project to detect landmines remotely, without risk to human life and equipment, using a neutron generator and gamma ray detectors from drones. This would speed up one-hundred-fold the de-mining of war zones in Ukraine. But the project ran out of funding, so now he has no source of income. He writes – "If we pray and get funds to order parts for a neutron generator and gamma ray detector, then things will start happening."

He also shares with us both the positive and negative sides of the effects of Russia's attack on Ukraine on the civilian population. A priest he met has a vision to care for disabled veterans of the war, as shown in the above photo of a village church. This would be a good fit for our plans to build Agape Restoration Communities in Ukraine. War always has innocent victims and unintended consequences: what may start out as noble motives of self-defense can degenerate into the defenders adopting forms of violence as bad as the attackers. Ukraine is not merely recruiting its men to fight against Russia, it is adopting semi-criminal tactics using press gangs to kidnap Ukrainian men, snatching them right off the street and sending them to the front.

"Recently in Odesa, there was a fight between press gangs and doctors of emergency services. Everything started when a gentleman who was severely beaten up at the press gang location called for emergency vehicle. When doctors showed up, they checked the patient and discovered that he had indeed been beaten up. Intead of letting the patient be taken to the local hospital, the press gang blocked the doctors and the patient for 4 hours or so. Doctors called their coworkers in Odesa and the help came: over 20 ER vehicles showed up with sirens blaring.

"The press gang started to repeatedly spray tear gas into the eyes of one of the doctors or vehicles drivers. The response was understandable: a baseball bat in the hands of the victim, however just to scare away the attackers. More press gang members in civilian clothes jumped at a few doctors and started beating them up. Just looking at the skills of some of the doctors, one can see their professional wresling experience, thank God. More doctors ran to defend their coworkers. The entire situation turned into a brawl."

"The result was that doctors and patient hostages were released by press gangs, good won over evil this time. Just for statistics, according the mayor of Odesa, in about a 9-month period, over 600 emergency doctors and drivers quit their jobs. The situation in Odesa is difficult because of press gang criminal activity with impunity.

"In addition, I visited a few smaller food stores and asked about food deliveries. Because many of the semi truck drivers and van drivers were kidnapped by the criminal press gangs, certain kinds of foods cannot be delivered to the stores. It looks like cops, who are supposed to protect the civilians, have teamed up with press gangs for kidnappings. According to insider information, the press gangs have a certain quota, as well as the cops. If they do not fulfill it, they are told they will be sent to the front instead. A friend of mine paid $6k just to get out of a van after he was kidnapped. He is selling his car now to pay back the money he borrowed."

Watch this YouTube video about the situation in Ukraine degenerating into the use of Soviet-style tactics: the speaker Drozhdov is Ukrainian, so tap the "gear" symbol to turn on subtitles, then select English or another language. Here's another video of a press gang member trying to snatch a Ukrainian Orthodox priest, and a third video of a mother protecting her children by fending off a press gang. Ukraine is facing a fork in the road: it must choose to behave like a civilized Christian society, or degenerate into the same old soviet mentality of inhumane brutality. Let us pray for the former!