Russia: "Orthodox Relics Are ALL Ours!"

   Sergey Naryshkin (Tass)

Shock-horror: "Holy relics from Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra monastery will be transferred to museums in Italy, France, Germany, and the Vatican, claims Russian Foreign Intelligence Service chief" (Elena Teslova 'Russia accuses Ukraine of allowing transfer of Orthodox Christian holy relics to Europe' Anadolu Agency 26.06.2023):

The Russian Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR) claimed on Monday that Ukraine authorized UNESCO to move holy relics of Eastern Orthodox Christianity from the Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra monastery to Europe. SVR Director Sergey Naryshkin said in a statement that the artifacts will be transferred to museums in Italy, France, Germany, and the Vatican. According to Naryshkin, "globalist elites, known for their passion to appropriate other people's valuables, are stepping up efforts to plunder Ukraine." However, whereas previously it was about financial and material resources, such as grain and fertile soil, “now they are reaching out to Orthodox relics on Ukrainian territory," he added. The Ukrainian authorities, the SVR chief claimed, made an inventory of church property and allocated financial resources for its transport to Europe.

Where do you start with this? Ukraine IS in Europe. UNESCO is not a transport company. The only people who are currently plundering Ukraine говорят по-русски. The "globalist elites" passage is straight from the Soviet song-sheet.

Once again, we see bold and unsupported statements about cultural property are used in propaganda to discredit one side or another of a dispute in an "us" versus "them" fashion. I think the rest of us think that after being properly inventoried, the cultural property of the Kyiv-Pecherska Lavra (formerly under the control of the Moscow patriarchate) will be kept in a place of safety - and where that is, is for the state on whose territory they lie to decide. That is the position of UNESCO, and the rest of us.
 
Meanwhile, while the ambassadors of "Russian Culture" in Ukraine, right before the eyes of the world continue to attempt to spread the Русский Мир by terrorising the local inhabitants of the occupied territories, mass executions, extreme sexual violence, and looting their properties, frankly, the rest of the world really does not care all that much about modern-day "Russian culture" (with a small 'c'). Maybe Mr Naryshkin might like to reflect that the origins of the Church of which the one he belongs to was an offshoot were in Kyiv, and the historiography of the state which Moscow developed within and from was precisely the Kyiv Lavra Monastery.

Oh, and Naryshkin is the guy who was humiliated by Putin after he got his lines wrong at the a security meeting in the Kremlin about the Russian-controlled territories in east Ukraine on 21 Feb 2022. ..

 

Posted on You Tube by Guardian News 21st Feb 2022.