Once again, Iran’s Press TV has hosted a wide-ranging and penetrating discussion of the Ukraine war on its ‘Spotlight’ program last night.
It was my pleasure to join on the show Fred Weir, a Canadian journalist based in Moscow for more than thirty years. Fred has served a variety of newspapers around the globe. He is probably best known as the correspondent of The Christian Science Monitor.
This show opened with an evaluation of the newly announced latest G7 package of military aid to Ukraine. The moderator proceeded to walk us through other topical issues including whether the sides to the conflict are experiencing shortages of weapons and munitions, whether there presently are grounds for holding negotiations to end the conflict, Merkel’s recent statement that the Minsk agreements were just a cover to give the Ukrainians time to recover from their military defeats of 2014-2015 and the reported death and casualty figures on both Ukrainian and Russian sides till now.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wY53uIIoekM .
Translations below into German (Andreas Mylaeus) and French (Youri)
Podiumsdiskussion mit Fred Weir über aktuelle Themen zum Ukrainekrieg
Wieder einmal hat das iranische Press TV gestern Abend in seinem Programm ‘Spotlight’ eine umfassende und in die Tiefe gehende Diskussion über den Ukrainekrieg veranstaltet.
Es war mir eine Freude, mit Fred Weir zusammenzutreffen, einem kanadischen Journalisten, der seit mehr als dreißig Jahren seinen Sitz in Moskau hat. Fred hat für eine ganze Reihe von Zeitungen weltweit geschrieben. Am bekanntesten ist er wahrscheinlich als Korrespondent des The Christian Science Monitor.
Die Sendung begann mit einer Bewertung der von der G7 kürzlich angekündigten Militärhilfe für die Ukraine. Der Moderator führte dann durch andere aktuelle Themen wie die Fragen, ob bei den Konfliktparteien Waffen und Munition knapp werden, ob es gegenwärtig eine Grundlage für Verhandlungen gibt, was Merkels kürzliche Aussage bedeutet, dass das Minsker Abkommen lediglich ein Vorwand war, um der Ukraine die Zeit zu verschaffen, sich von den militärischen Niederlagen von 2014 – 2015 zu erholen und die bisher berichteten Zahlen von Toten und Verwundeten auf beiden Seiten.
Débat avec Fred Weir sur les principaux enjeux actuels de la guerre en Ukraine
Une fois de plus, Press TV, la chaîne iranienne, a organisé hier soir, dans le cadre de son émission « Spotlight », un débat approfondi sur la guerre en Ukraine.
J’ai eu le plaisir de rejoindre dans l’émission Fred Weir, un journaliste canadien basé à Moscou depuis plus de trente ans. Fred a travaillé pour de nombreux journaux dans le monde entier. Il est probablement mieux connu en tant que correspondant du Christian Science Monitor.
Cette émission a débuté par une évaluation du dernier paquet d’aide militaire à l’Ukraine récemment annoncé par le G7. Le présentateur a ensuite abordé d’autres sujets d’actualité, notamment la question de savoir si les parties impliquées dans le conflit connaissent des pénuries d’armes et de munitions, s’il existe actuellement des raisons de tenir des négociations pour mettre fin au conflit, la récente déclaration de Mme Merkel selon laquelle les accords de Minsk n’étaient qu’une couverture pour donner aux Ukrainiens le temps de se remettre de leurs défaites militaires de 2014-2015 et le nombre de morts et de blessés recensés jusqu’à présent du côté ukrainien et russe.
Gilbert Doctorow 
Very good discussion – thank you for posting. What are your views on what is happening with the attempt by the Zelensky government to split the Orthodox Church in Ukraine?
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Ukraine, with the assistance of the Ecumenical Patriarch in Constantinople, has already created a schism in Orthodoxy within the Ukraine with the creation of the schismatic OCU – Kyiv Patriarchate (in opposition to the OCU – Moscow Patriarchate, which is the recognized Orthodox Church in the country). It is essentially an attempt to create a National Church separate from the Moscow Patriarchate and was “strongly endorsed” via U.S. influence in Constantinople and Ukraine.
Zelensky’s attack on the OCU-MP is little more than a continuation of this schismatic activity, which has always been married to the political maneuvers in the country to “de-Russify” it.
Ortho-Wiki adds: “…most local Orthodox Churches have not entered into communion with the Orthodox Church of Ukraine, still regarding its members as schismatic, while continuing to support Metropolitan Onufriy as the canonical primate of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (Moscow Patriarchate). All Autocephalous Churches are in communion with the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (Moscow Patriarchate).”
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Thank you – yes, I, as an Orthodox believer, am well aware of this dynamic and the insidious role played by various US and Greek functionaries in it. I am actually wondering about more recent developments since the start of the SMO, because my understanding is that met. Onufriy has basically severed his ties with the MP since February, and now the entire church that he heads up in Ukraine, which was already basically autocephalous even before the start of the SMO, is in the process of being forceably deprived of its churches and monasteries by the Zelensky government. This is an absolute disaster for places like the Kievo-Pechersky Lavra, etc. and there doesn’t seem to be any way of stopping this short of a conquest of Kiev itself.
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I agree with your assessment, Irina. The sooner Kyiv falls and all this is sorted out, the better.
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