The Russian Defense Ministry denied that their country was responsible for the destruction of Odessa’s largest church, instead claiming that this was caused by “the fall of a Ukrainian anti-aircraft guided missile” that was deployed in civilian-populated areas due to the authorities’ “incompetent actions”. Two Ukrainian and US reports inadvertently lend credence to this version of events, which suggests that more such accidents are inevitable unless remedial measures are taken, even though none likely will be.
Ukrainian Air Force spokesman Yury Ignat admitted last weekend during a TV interview that “There is no other way to defend a city than to deploy air defense systems closer to it”, which confirmed Amnesty International’s report last August that Kiev illegally militarizes residential areas. Two days prior to Sunday’s accident, CNN admitted that “Ukrainian air defenses in Odessa (are) outgunned”, with the innuendo being that they’re wildly firing everything they have out of desperation to make up for this.
Taken together, these admissions make it impossible for any objective observer to dismiss the Russian Defense Ministry’s claims about the true cause of the Transfiguration Cathedral’s destruction. Not only is there no longer any doubt that Kiev is still illegally militarizing residential areas through the deployment of air defense systems inside of its own cities, but there are also reasons to think that the aforesaid were being wildly fired out of desperation in Odessa this past week to defend military targets there.
Accordingly, it’s not far-fetched to imagine that some of these same missiles fired within the city’s limits fell back down within it, thus resulting in Sunday’s accident that Kiev blamed on Russia. By lying about who’s responsible, the regime wants to distract from its crusade against the Ukrainian Orthodox Church by making the international community think that Russia deliberately targeted its largest site in Odessa, which it would obviously never do. Nevertheless, this lie still deflects some attention from Kiev’s crimes.
Every time Russia brings up the plight of that canonical church, Kiev can now respond by bringing up its lie that Russia was allegedly responsible for destroying its largest site in Odessa, motivated as they likely are by Nazi propagandist Joseph Goebbels’ claim that a lie comes off as the truth if it’s repeated enough. Referencing Ignat’s and CNN’s damning admissions can serve as an effective riposte, however, by lending credence to the Russian Defense Ministry’s conclusion that Kiev’s incompetence was responsible for this.
After all, the Western audience whose perceptions Kiev is trying to manipulate regard the words of Ukrainian officials and CNN as the gospel, hence why referencing them in that context could get folks to reconsider whether the regime is telling the truth about Russia destroying the Transfiguration Cathedral. Through these means, Russia’s integrity could be preserved in parallel with prompting some of Kiev’s supporters to wonder what else that regime has lied about, thus sowing even more seeds of doubt about its cause.
