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Monday, May 5, 2014

SOCIETY / Europe - Russia: Putin's problem? The influence of "Eastern Orthodoxy", says EU rep.

Putin's problem? The influence of "Eastern Orthodoxy", says EU rep.
Stockholm (Agora Dialogue) - Carl Bildt, Sweden's Minister for Foreign Affairs and one of the architects of the EU Eastern policy, thinks Russia has changed for the worse in the past several years. While it demonstrated attachment to western values in the first decade after the Soviet Union fell apart and tried to impose them on its citizens, Russia's current leadership takes a firm stand against the West, the Russian agency REX reported.

In the words of Mr Bildt, Vladimir Putin demonstrates attachment not to world but to Eastern Orthodox values, which becomes clear from a Twitter post of his [Bildt's].

"The new anti-west and anti-decadent line [of conduct] of Putin is based on the deep conservatism of Eastern Orthodox ideas," Carl Bildt is convinced.

The Swedish minister explains the striving to destroy the Ukrainian church and bring the Ukrainian autocephaly back into the fold of the Moscow Patriarchate with Putin's striving to gain control over Ukraine. But precisely Eastern Orthodoxy, according to Bildt, is the main threat to western civilisation.