“ John Spencer, an expert on urban combat, wrote a detailed Twitter thread on Saturday offering advice on how Ukrainians might resist an attack on their cities.
Kiev is a bit different from Grozhny, it's where Russia began, there are churches there which were there in the period of the Kievan Rus. To render the place into rubble would be to utterly destroy Russian heritage. I'd think that Putin would be cognizant of that. This is pretty much indicative of what Russia's government thinks about the matter - "The “Russian World” ideology has been cited by both Vladimir Putin and Russian Orthodox Patriarch Kirill over the past two decades. It asserts, the theologians write, that “there is a transnational Russian sphere or civilization, called Holy Russia or Holy Rus’, which includes Russia, Ukraine and Belarus (and sometimes Moldova and Kazakhstan), as well as ethnic Russians and Russian-speaking people throughout the world.”
The ideology asserts that Moscow is the political center and Kyiv — the “mother of all the Rus” — is the spiritual center. Russian is the common language and the Russian Orthodox Church under the Moscow Patriarchate is the common religion. In this 'world,' they write, the Patriarch “works in 'symphony' with a common president/national leader (Putin) to govern this Russian world, as well as upholding a common distinctive spirituality, morality, and culture.”
"In Grozny you had an irregular force that was very effective at this, basically creating a nightmare for the enemy.”
And how did that end for Grozny?
Oh, right. The Russians ended up flattening it, leaving not much more than a large pile of rubble.
Kiev is a bit different from Grozhny, it's where Russia began, there are churches there which were there in the period of the Kievan Rus. To render the place into rubble would be to utterly destroy Russian heritage. I'd think that Putin would be cognizant of that. This is pretty much indicative of what Russia's government thinks about the matter - "The “Russian World” ideology has been cited by both Vladimir Putin and Russian Orthodox Patriarch Kirill over the past two decades. It asserts, the theologians write, that “there is a transnational Russian sphere or civilization, called Holy Russia or Holy Rus’, which includes Russia, Ukraine and Belarus (and sometimes Moldova and Kazakhstan), as well as ethnic Russians and Russian-speaking people throughout the world.”
The ideology asserts that Moscow is the political center and Kyiv — the “mother of all the Rus” — is the spiritual center. Russian is the common language and the Russian Orthodox Church under the Moscow Patriarchate is the common religion. In this 'world,' they write, the Patriarch “works in 'symphony' with a common president/national leader (Putin) to govern this Russian world, as well as upholding a common distinctive spirituality, morality, and culture.”
This spiritual center stands against what its adherents consider “the corrupt West, led by the United States and Western European nations, which has capitulated to ‘liberalism,’ ‘globalization.’ ‘Christianophobia,’ ‘homosexual rights’ promoted in gay parades, and ‘militant secularism’.” https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2022/03/15/orthodox-christian-unity-broken-by-russian-world-heresy-a76922