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During his visit to Ukraine, the Holy See's Secretary of State, Cardinal Pietro Parolin, brings Pope Francis' message of closeness and affirms that even when we may lose hope, nothing is impossible for God.

By Deborah Castellano Lubov

While our hopes may be diminished, everything is possible for God who is greater than ourselves and our capabilities...

The Holy See's Secretary of State, Cardinal Pietro Parolin, gave this comforting reminder on Sunday, 21 July, at the conclusion of his visit to the see of the leader of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church, Major Archbishop of Kyiv-Halych, His Beatitude Sviatoslav Shevchuk.

Cardinal Parolin's 19-24 July visit to Ukraine follows his appointment as Pontifical Legate for the concluding celebration of the pilgrimage of Ukrainian Latin Rite Catholics, to the Marian Shrine of Berdychiv.

The Cardinals visit marks his first to the Eastern European country since the beginning of the full-scale Russian invasion in February 2024.

The Secretary of State expressed his gratitude to be at the seat of the Major Archbishop, "the father and head" of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church, and for the "significant progress" that had been made there since Parolin's visit in 2016.

Cardinal Parolin acknowledged, "Obviously, the moment I visit Ukraine is not a pleasant one, as we are all aware of the situation," but that, regardless, he traveled "to pray together, and to pray with you."

This Holy See official recalled, as he had done before during his stay in the country, that the Church has "a prophetic role" to play, one that follows the example of the prophet Elijah.

"We must call for a great prayer for peace, rooted in the belief that everything is possible with God," he said.

"Even though our hopes are finite and limited," he continued, "we know that God is greater than ourselves, our hearts, and our capabilities."

God is greater than ourselves, our hearts, and our capabilities...

With this comforting reminder, the Cardinal reiterated: "The message I bring from the Pope is one of closeness."

Recalling that Pope Francis has over the years repeatedly remembered the suffering in the war-torn country, including at his 21 July Angelus address to the faithful in St. Peter's Square, the Cardinal noted, "From the beginning, the Pope has shown immense closeness and great participation in this people's pain and suffering."

Cardinal Parolin noted that his physical presence in the country, "adds a 'living' aspect to this papal presence," which "shares in the pain," but, especially, "desires to help open paths of peace" and "toward a resolution of this war."

"I hope that my presence here," he expressed, "can make a small contribution in this sense."

Cardinal Parolin concluded his remarks, reiterating how "genuinely pleased" he was to be there and to share this important moment together.

The message I bring from the Pope is one of closeness.

Read more:
Cardinal Parolin to Ukraine: 'Nothing is impossible for God' - Vatican News

Perhaps the most striking thing about Moscow today is its calm. This is a city that has been barely touched by war. Indeed, until you turn on the television where propaganda is omnipresent you would hardly know that there is a war.

Any economic damage from Western sanctions has been offset by the large number of wealthy Russians who have returned due to sanctions. The Russian government has deliberately limited conscription in Moscow and St. Petersburg, and this, together with a degree of repression, explains why there have been few protests by educated youth. No longer fearing conscription, many of the younger Muscovites who fled Russia at the start of the war have now returned.

As to the shops in central Moscow, I couldnt say if the Louis Vuitton handbags are the genuine articles or Chinese knock-offs, but there is no lack of them. And far more important, Russia since the war demonstrates something that Germany once understood and the rest of Europe would do well to understand: that in an uncertain world, it is very important indeed to be able to grow all your own food.

In the provinces, it is reportedly very different. There, conscription, and casualties, really have bitten deep. This however has been balanced by the fact that the industrial provinces have experienced a huge economic boom due to military spending, with labor shortages pushing up wages. Stories abound of technical workers well into their seventies being recalled to work, fostering their income and restoring the self-respect they lost with the collapse of the 1990s. As I heard from many Russians, the war has finally forced us to do many of the things that we should have done in the 1990s.

In Moscow at least, there is, however, little positive enthusiasm for the war. Both opinion polls, and my own conversations with Russian elites, suggest that a majority of Russians do not want to fight for a complete victory (whatever that means) and would like to see a compromise peace now. Even large majorities however are against surrender, and oppose the return to Ukraine of any land in the five provinces annexed by Russia.

In the elites, the desire for a compromise peace is linked to opposition to the idea of trying to storm major Ukrainian cities by force, as was the case with Mariupol and Kharkov is at least three times the size of Mariupol. Even if we succeeded, our casualties would be huge, so would the deaths of civilians, and we would inherit great heaps of ruins that we would have to rebuild, one Russian analyst told me. I dont think most Russians want to see that.

Despite efforts by some figures like former president Dmitri Medvedev, there is very little hatred of the Ukrainian people (as opposed to the Ukrainian government) in part because so many Russians are themselves Ukrainian by origin. Hence perhaps another reason why Putin has presented this as a war with NATO, not Ukraine. This recalled the attitudes to Russia of people I met in the Russian-speaking areas of Ukraine last year, a great many of whom are themselves wholly or partly Russian. They hated the Russian government, not the Russian people.

In the foreign and security elites, various ideas for a compromise peace are circulating: a treaty ratified by the United Nations, guaranteeing Ukrainian (and Russian) security without Ukraine joining NATO; the creation of demilitarized zones patrolled by U.N. peacekeepers as opposed to the annexation of more territory; territorial swaps, in which Russia would return land in Kharkov to Ukraine in exchange for land in the Donbas or Zaporozhia. The great majority of Russian analysts with whom I spoke believe however that only the U.S. can initiate peace talks, and that this will not happen until after the U.S. elections, if it happens at all.

The overall mood therefore seems to be one of accepting the inevitability of continued war, rather than positive enthusiasm for the war; and the Putin administration seems content with this. Putin remains very distrustful of the Russian people; hence his refusal so far to mobilize more than a fraction of Russias available manpower. This is not a regime that wants mass participation, and hence is also wary about mass enthusiasm. Its maxim seems rather, Calm is the first duty of every citizen.

A German version of this article was published in the Berliner Zeitung on June 29, 2024.

Read the original post:
What I saw and heard about the Ukraine war in Moscow - Responsible Statecraft

Oleksii Kharkivskyi, the chief of the patrol police of Vovchansk, in his police car in an undisclosed location in Kharkiv Oblast, Ukraine, on May 26. Laurel Chor for NPR hide caption

KHARKIV REGION, Ukraine For the last 10 weeks, a battle has raged for a small border town just five miles from Russia.

The fact that Russia invaded Vovchansk was no surprise; Russian troops had massed along the border with northeastern Ukraine as under-resourced and overstretched Ukrainian troops waited for military aid from the U.S. and Western allies.

For Oleksii Kharkivskyi, head of the patrol police in town, it felt like a real-life example of what happens without enough of that aid.

We tried to prepare, he says. But the Russians stormed in and dropped so many bombs.

Kharkivskyi grew up in Vovchansk, fishing in the woodland ponds and hiking along the Vovcha river that bisected the town. He helped evacuate his neighbors through those woods when Russian forces occupied Vovchansk in February 2022. A few months later, Ukraine recaptured the town but only a quarter of its 18,000 residents returned. They faced daily Russian shelling.

We, as the police force, were there to try to give people confidence to stay, Kharkivskyi said. I got to know everyone personally.

When the Russians invaded again in early May, he found himself evacuating his neighbors, mainly elderly people who wept as they left everything behind. He filmed the evacuations and posted the videos to Facebook.

I wanted to show everyone what it looks like when a town runs out of ways to defend itself, he said.

Oleksii Kharkivskyi, the chief of the patrol police of Vovchansk, shows videos he filmed during evacuations of civilians from Vovchansk in Kharkiv Oblast, Ukraine. Laurel Chor for NPR hide caption

Serhii Kuzan, who leads the Ukrainian Security and Cooperation Center, a defense think tank in Kyiv, said delays in military aid from the U.S. and Europe emboldened Russia to mass troops along Ukraines northeastern border with Russia.

He said the offensive started to stall only after that aid started trickling in and the U.S. gave Ukraine permission to use American-supplied weapons to strike at limited military targets in Russia.

Ukrainian intelligence warned about Russian plans in the northeast, Kuzan said. The lack of ammunition and the lack of resources led to a loss of precious time.

Deep in the woods, not far from Vovchansk, the command center of one of the 57th Separate Motorized Brigades battalions set up a temporary base.

The battalion commander, Yurii Lunyov, said at the beginning of the offensive, supply lines to the front line were blocked by Russian fighter jets constantly dropping guided bombs in and around town. These bombs have pop-out wings and satellite navigation.

Yurii Lunyov, commander of the 2nd Rifle Battalion of the 57th Brigade, poses for a portrait outside a command center near Vovchansk on May 29. Laurel Chor for NPR hide caption

Scenes inside the command center for an artillery unit of the 57th brigade in the Kharkiv region on May 29. Laurel Chor for NPR hide caption

A soldier from the brigade, Rodion, who did not reveal his last name for security reasons, monitored a screen in late May showing Russian and Ukrainian soldiers fighting in the streets of Vovchansk.

We are rationing ammunition," he said. But the Russians have the resources to drop countless bombs, even on very small targets, like on three soldiers.

Rodion, a soldier with the 57th brigade, in the command center for an artillery unit in the Kharkiv region on May 29. Laurel Chor for NPR hide caption

The guided bombs remain a challengebut Lunyov, the battalion commander, said the Russians seemed to slow down after the U.S. allowed Ukraine to use American-issued weapons to strike at military targets in Russia. Those strikes, he said, appeared to have damaged logistical chains and equipment in Russia.

However, Russia continues to send waves and waves of infantry. The brigade's artillery unit is trying to hold them back.

Deeper into the woods, along a dirt road, the units commander, Nur, who didnt want to give his full name for the same security reasons, said the unit lacked long-range shells.

If we had these, he said, "we could have fired at Russian troops before they reached Vovchansk."

Nur, an artillery unit commander for the 57th brigade, poses for a portrait in a command center in the Kharkiv region on May 29. Laurel Chor for NPR hide caption

Some Western military aid has now arrived on the front line. It's helped Ukrainian troops stop the Russian advance here. But there's not much left of the town beyond ruins and rubble.

Dozens of people are still in Vovchansk, hiding in basements as Russian troops continue to attack the town. Earlier this month, soldiers and local police officers evacuated three children.

Evacuations are dangerous. At the end of May, hundreds mourned a police officer killed by a Russian drone during an evacuation. The memorial was held in a basement about 30 miles from Vovchansk, in the city of Kharkiv. Outside, air raid sirens blared.

The wartime administrator of Vovchansk, Tamaz Gambarshvili, limped as he walked behind the coffin.

"The enemy struck a place where we had set up evacuation headquarters," he said. "I got a shrapnel wound in my left thigh."

Gambarshvili is in charge of relocating evacuees from Vovchansk. Many ended up in a student dormitory thats now empty because of the war.

Smoke is seen on the horizon in Ukraine's Kharkiv region, May 29. Laurel Chor for NPR hide caption

Liudmyla Kuznetsova, a 79-year-old retired bread factory accountant, said she and her family were among the last to leave Vovchansk.

Whenever the doors and windows were blown off [our home], we would just repair them, she said.

But she ran out of supplies, and Vovchansk ran out of time.

She left at night with only the clothes on her back as her hometown burned.

Read the original here:
Near Ukraine's front line, a devastated community takes stock after Russian advances - NPR

As bombs dropped by Russian warplanes tore through residential districts in the Ukrainian city of Kharkiv this weekend, killing at least four people and injuring dozens more, President Volodymyr Zelensky on Sunday called on allies to further ease restrictions on the use of Western weapons so that his forces could use them against Russian air bases.

The Biden administrations recent decision to allow Ukraine to use certain weapons to hit forces inside Russia has had an immediate impact, helping Ukraine thwart Moscows offensive north of Kharkiv and slowing the bombardment of the city, Ukraines second-largest, which is only about 25 miles from the border.

But the lifting of U.S. restrictions does not apply to the use of Army Tactical Missile Systems, known as ATACMS, some of which have a range of around 190 miles. Those longer-range weapons would be needed to hit air bases deep in Russian territory that are used by the bombers. Kyiv has been left to rely largely on its own expanding fleet of domestically produced drones to go after those bases.

Ukraines air defenses are gradually being strengthened after months of delays in American military assistance, but Russia continues to mount daily bombardments and Mr. Zelensky is desperate to find ways to thwart the attacks before they begin.

We have enough determination to destroy terrorists on their territory it is only fair and we need the same determination from our partners, he said in a post on social media on Sunday.

Just this day alone, our warriors shot down two Russian Kalibr missiles, he wrote. Yesterday 12 Russian missiles and 13 attack drones. And so on every night and every day.

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Ukraine Urges West to Allow Use of Weapons to Hit Russian Air Bases - The New York Times

A Russian strike on a residential building in Ukraine's second-largest city of Kharkiv killed two people and injured more than 50, rescuers said on Sunday, revising down a previous death toll.

Russia has stepped up attacks in the northeastern Kharkiv region after launching a new offensive there last month, seeking to break a largely static front line as the invasion grinds through its third year.

A five-storey residential building was damaged when guided bombs hit Kharkiv city on Saturday, Ukrainian officials said, with the State Emergency Service announcing the completion of rescue work by Sunday morning.

"As a result of this aerial bomb strike, 2 people have been killed and 53 others were injured, including 3 children," it wrote on Telegram.

President Volodymyr Zelensky on Saturday had announced three deaths and condemned Russia's "calculated terror."

An engineer wounded in a Russian strike on an energy facility in the southern Zaporizhzhia region died in hospital, regional governor Ivan Fedorov said on Sunday.

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Russian Attack on Ukraines Kharkiv Kills Two Rescuers - The Moscow Times