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FYI...

Christians in Russia Refuse to Stop Sharing the Gospel Despite Putin’s Ban on Evangelism

By Stoyan Zaimov , Christian Post Reporter
Aug 3, 2016 | 1:32 PM

Christians in Russia have said they are determined to preach the Gospel and fulfill the Great Commission despite tough new laws signed by President Vladimir Putin that ban evangelism outside of churches. ...”

http://www.christianpost.com/news/christians-russia-refuse-stop-sharing-the-gospel-despite-putins-ban-evangelism-167442/
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July 2016...

FAITH UNDER FIRE

Russia puts lid on Christians sharing faith

‘Will require any sharing … even a casual conversation, to have prior authorization from state’

http://www.wnd.com/2016/07/russia-puts-lid-on-christians-sharing-faith/#34c1Fo2QT9xudcrR.99

Putin: Defender of Christian Faith and Morality?

September 2014

(excerpt from a long, detailed article)

First and foremost, in any review of the basics regarding Putin, the most outstanding fact is that he is a creature of the Soviet KGB, a truly diabolical organization nonpareil, which stood for murder, terror, and grand deception.

It was the Soviet Communist Party's tool for the brutal suppression of religion, including the persecution of Christians: denying them jobs and education; spying on and entrapping them; arresting and imprisoning them; torturing them in unspeakable ways; desecrating and demolishing their church buildings; infiltrating their agents into churches to subvert them. The KGB destroyed thousands of Christian churches, monasteries, convents, and schools, and slaughtered millions of Christians.

But it did not destroy the churches utterly. There remained an underground church, whose members were always at risk of discovery, arrest, torture, and martyrdom. Above ground, the KGB took control of the Russian Orthodox Church, which became a very useful organ of the Soviet atheist state.

In January 2009, Vladimir Mikhailovich Gundyaev, better known as Metropolitan Kirill of Smolensk and Kaliningrad, was elected, from a short list of three candidates, to be the 16th Patriarch of Moscow and All Russia, the highest position of authority in the Russian Orthodox Church (ROC). The election was called to fill the post that had been left vacant by the death of Patriarch Alexy II, who had headed the ROC since 1990.

Documents from the KGB archives have confirmed what sensible observers had long ago deduced from his actions: that Patriarch Alexy II (also spelled Alexi or Alexei) was a long-serving KGB agent (code-named Drozdov, "Blackbird"), in other words, a traitor to his Christian brethren and the God he claimed to serve. Putin's KGB/FSB was taking no chances with his replacement. All three candidates - Metropolitan Kliment of Kaluga and Borovsk (code-named Topaz), Metropolitan Filaret of Minsk and Slutsk (code-named Ostrovskii), and Metropolitan Kirill (code-named Mikhailov) - also have been reliably identified as agents of the KGB/FSB.

Russia expert David Satter, a former Moscow correspondent for the Financial Times (of London) and the Wall Street Journal, wrote of the election in 2009 for Forbes:

According to material from the Soviet archives, Kirill was a KGB agent (as was Alexei). This means he was more than just an informer, of whom there were millions in the Soviet Union. He was an active officer of the organization. Neither Kirill nor Alexei ever acknowledged or apologized for their ties with the security agencies.

Because Patriarch Kirill is of central importance to the myth of Putin as the Saul-to-Paul, Christian persecutor-to-Christian champion, it behooves us to more closely examine the man. He has publicly presided over, and provided official benedictions and exhortations for, Putin's cynical and Stalinesque exploitation of Russian nationalism and Russian Orthodoxy. Josef Stalin, who had very nearly consummated the annihilation of the Russian Orthodox Church begun by Vladimir Lenin, reversed course in 1941. The reason? His erstwhile partner in crime, Adolf Hitler, had turned on him and had invaded Russia.

Stalin, needing all the help he could get, cut a deal with ROC Metropolitans Sergius, Nikolay, and Alexy. In exchange for their support in rallying the Russian people, he would cease (temporarily) the persecution and allow the reopening of churches and theological schools. In fact, Stalin's Soviet government paid for the rebuilding of many of the churches. The ROC was thus placed even more firmly under the control of the NKVD, which was later to be reorganized and renamed as the KGB. ..."

much more at link

http://www.thenewamerican.com/world-news/europe/item/19162-putin-defender-of-christian-faith-and-morality

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"For 16 years Putin was an officer in the KGB, rising to the rank of Lieutenant Colonel before he retired to enter politics in his native Saint Petersburg in 1991.

He moved to Moscow in 1996 and joined President Boris Yeltsin's administration where he rose quickly, becoming Acting President on 31 December 1999 when Yeltsin unexpectedly resigned. Putin won the subsequent 2000 presidential election, despite widespread accusations of vote-rigging,[3] and was reelected in 2004."

"On 25 July 1998, Yeltsin appointed Vladimir Putin head of the FSB (one of the successor agencies to the KGB), the position Putin occupied until August 1999. He became a permanent member of the Security Council of the Russian Federation on 1 October 1998 and its Secretary on 29 March 1999."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vladimir_Putin

From Sept (2016)...

Russia 'to revive the KGB' after Putin wins biggest majority

Telegraph (UK) ^ | 19 September 2016 • 3:39PM | Marc Bennetts

Russia plans effectively to revive the KGB under a massive shake-up of its security forces, a respected business daily has reported.

A State Security Ministry, or MGB, would be created from the current Federal Security Service (FSB) , and would incorporate the foreign intelligence service (SVR) and the state guard service (FSO), under the plans. It would be handed all-encompassing powers once possessed by the KGB, the Kommersant newspaper said, citing security service sources.

Like the much-feared KGB, it would also oversee the prosecutions of Kremlin critics, a task currently undertaken by the Investigative Committee, headed by Alexander Bastrykin, a former university classmate of President Putin.

The Kremlin has not commented. ...

(Excerpt) Read more at telegraph.co.uk ...

"Putin said Stalin deserves statues in his honor"

http://en.ria.ru/russia/20131219/185734707/Putin-Says-Stalin-No-Worse-Than-Cunning-Oliver-Cromwell.html
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"the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the [20th] century" -Russian leader Vladimir Putin on the collapse of the Soviet Union...

"World democratic opinion has yet to realize the alarming implications of President Vladimir Putin's State of the Union speech on April 25, 2005, in which he said that the collapse of the Soviet Union represented the 'greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the century.'..."

"The more I see and read about Mr. Putin, in power since 1999, and his 'managed democracy,' the more apprehensive I become about the future of Russia and the safety of its neighbors.

If Putin believes that the dissolution of the Soviet Union into 15 independent states represents the 'greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the century,' then it follows that Putin might well believe he should do something to repair the loss..."

http://web.archive.org/web/20090415000000*/http://www.hooverdigest.org/053/beichman.html
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"The demise of the Soviet Union was the 'greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the century'," Putin said in 2005.

http://www.thetrumpet.com/article/11102.30640.0.0/asia/moscow-puts-the-soviet-squeeze-on-neighbor-nations
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"'The Black Book of Communism,'; a scholarly accounting of communism's crimes, counts about 94 million murdered by the supposed champions of the common man (20 million for the Soviets alone), and some say that number is too low."

Forgetting the Evils of Communism: The amnesia bites a little deeper
By Jonah Goldberg, August 2008:
http://web.archive.org/web/20100711090651/http://article.nationalreview.com/365528/forgetting-the-evils-of-communism/jonah-goldberg
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"The demise of the Soviet Union was the 'greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the century'," Putin said in 2005.

"Putin said Stalin deserves statues in his honor"
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Image result for etl freerepublic stalin statues

Did Communism Fake Its Own Death in 1991?
American Thinker ^ | January 16, 2010 | Jason McNew

In a [] 1984 book [New Lies for Old], ex-KGB Major Anatoliy Golitsyn predicted the liberalization of the Soviet Bloc and claimed that it would be a strategic deception. ..."

"Golitsyn's argument was that beginning in about 1960, the Soviet Union embarked on a strategy of massive long-range strategic deception which would span several decades and result in the destruction of Western capitalism and the erection of a communist world government."

"Golitsyn published his second book, The Perestroika Deception, after the Soviet Union was dissolved in 1991. This book contained further analysis of the liberalization, in addition to previously classified memoranda submitted by Golitsyn to the CIA. The two books must be read together to get a complete picture of Golitsyn's thesis."

http://www.americanthinker.com/2010/01/did_communism_fake_its_own_dea.html
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Link to read "New Lies for Old" online:
https://archive.org/details/GolitsynAnatoleTheNewLiesForOldOnes
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Link to read "The Perestroika Deception" online:
https://archive.org/details/pdfy-TVvzZzfXiMBkMdvD

How Russia arms America's southern neighbors

Ioan Grillo
May 9, 2014

RIO DE JANEIRO, Brazil -- Russia's push into Ukraine has put many on edge. But less known is that Russia is also strengthening its military links south of the Rio Grande and re-establishing itself as a power in the region.

Vladimir Putin has been strengthening military links here, and Russia is now the largest arms dealer to governments in Latin America, surpassing the United States.

Russia has even floated the possibility of building new military bases in Cuba, Venezuela and Nicaragua, and putting its warships permanently in the Caribbean.

In the midst of the Ukraine crisis, Russia's top diplomat Sergei Lavrov recently visited Cuba, Peru, Chile, and Nicaragua, where he announced that Russia would also pour money into the new Central American canal project. ..."

http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/news/regions/americas/140508/russian-arms-military-trade-latin-america
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Russia Boosts Arms, Training for Leftist Latin Militaries

Moscow defense minister inks deals with Cuba, Venezuela, Nicaragua for joint exercises

BY: Bill Gertz
February 20, 2015

Russia agreed to provide military training for three leftist regimes in Latin America and increase military visits and exercises following a visit last week to the region by Moscow's Defense Minister Sergei Shoygu, Pentagon officials said.

Shoygu met with defense and military leaders in Cuba, Venezuela, and Nicaragua and signed several agreements on warship visits and military training during the visit, which ran from Feb. 11 to 14. It is not clear whether any new arms deals were completed during the visit.

Defense officials said the Russian leader is seeking bases in the region for strategic bomber flights that Shoygu recently promised would include flights over the Gulf of Mexico and Caribbean.

http://freebeacon.com/national-security/russia-boosts-arms-training-for-leftist-latin-militaries/