Patriarch Kirill Says West Trying To Set Muslims And Christians In Russia Against One Another Just As It Did In Yugoslavia in 1990s – OpEd
By Paul Goble
The Crocus City Hall terrorist attack is the latest example of the West’s longstanding effort to set Russia’s Christians and Russia’s Muslims against one another, Patriarch Kirill says, an effort that resembles the one that led to the disintegration of Yugoslavia but can’t be allowed to have that result in the case of the Russian Federation.
Speaking to the World Russian Popular Assembly, the Russian churchman said that the West hopes it can use Russia’s domestic problems with immigrants against Russian unity (nazaccent.ru/content/42017-patriarh-kirill-zayavil-chto-vragi-rossii-pytayutsya-stolknut-dve-tradicionnye-religii-v-strane.html).
What occurred, Kirill continued, was an attempt to “divide people on a religious basis” and set them in “conflict with one another,” something that “we cannot allow to happen in Russia” where the basic mass of believers in both these faiths share a common “worldview” and “moral position.”
“Our task, of course,” the Russian patriarch said, “is to preserve with all our might the unity of the Russian world,” a task that requires vigilance because such Western efforts to promote discord can have serious consequences as was the case in the former Yugoslavia more than two decades ago.
