Pat Buchanan: Putin Paranoia

By Patrick J. Buchanan

Hopefully, the shaky truce between Vladimir Putin and Ukraine’s Petro Poroshenko, brokered in Minsk by Angela Merkel, will hold.

For nothing good, but much evil, could come of broadening and lengthening this war that has cost the lives of 5,400 Ukrainians.

The longer it goes on, the greater the casualties, the more land Ukraine will lose, and the greater the likelihood Kiev will end up an amputated and bankrupt republic, a dependency the size of France on the doorstep of Europe.

Priest: Ukrainian Catholics Flee Crimea to Escape Threats of Arrest

Father Milchakovskyi said that he and his family and at least two-thirds of his parishioners have left for Ukrainian-controlled territory on the advice of Archbishop Shevchuk (pictured above) (CNS)

Members of the Ukrainian Catholic Church are fleeing Crimea to escape threats of arrest and property seizures, a priest has said.

“The situation remains very serious, and we don’t know what will happen — the new government here is portraying us all as nationalists and extremists,” said Father Mykhailo Milchakovskyi, a parish rector and military chaplain from Kerch, Crimea, who was speaking to the Catholic News Service just four days after Russia finalised the region’s annexation.

Read more at The Catholic Herald (UK) >>