Several news outlets are reporting this story. They say what prompted it was the unlawful detention of a reporter and more arrests may be imminent.
The warning is listed like a travel advisory of sorts, but it says: “Following recent Russian military actions in Ukraine, U.S. citizens should consider departing Russia immediately via limited commercial options still available. ” https://www.state.gov/countries-areas/russia/
Not sure what recent “Russian military actions in Ukraine” has to do with an arrest of a news reporter in Russia. I would say, however, this isn’t regular travel advisory language. They’re not telling you not to travel to a certain location. They’re telling you to get out of dodge if you’re there! That’s different.
Still no reason to panic. Seriously. The current overall Defcon level OSINT (Open Source Intelligence) estimate is 3, which it’s been for a long time. The OSINT is pretty on top of things, although they’re obviously NOT the military, as the military use defcon codes for “readiness” and don’t publish them. https://www.defconlevel.com/current-level.php
You might take this opportunity to plan for an event, but it doesn’t have to be an unpleasant event. Let’s say you plan a 2 week camping trip! Get some propane, charcoal, wood, or whatever else you need for your BBQ even if it’s going to rain.
Get your prescriptions filled. George tells me doctors and pharmacists will help you out even during an emergency but do as much as can be done, now.
But make it an adventure for your family if you have young kids. Tell your kids, “Yea! We get to have a pretend camping trip. We can eat hot dogs and get the sleeping bags out and put them in the living room! We may even set up the tent just for fun!” For them, it could be for just one night, but you will be planning for 2 weeks in terms of shopping and getting ready.
Camping indoors is obviously not safer than sleeping in your own bed, but it will serve as a trial run for your family, as well as be a lot of fun. Grandparents, you can do this, too. You will be getting your families prepared without the stress of wondering what to do in a real emergency.
Give little kids some responsibilities so they don’t feel helpless. Have one kid get all the flashlights together and make sure they work. Another kid can get all the batteries together. Another kid get the sleeping bags out. All of which can go into one pile of necessities where you can get to them in a hurry without fumbling around for them in the dark later on.
No lights, no TV, no phone allowed! Real camping in your living room! You can tell all your FB friends what you’re doing so they can do the same.
BTW, watch the movie Life is Beautiful. It’s a great movie and will inspire you on how to present things to your children.
Having gone through something like this as a 10-year-old, if your children ask questions, I would recommend you answer them. Start with, “As a family, we’re prepared so we don’t have to worry.” Tell them the lights might go out but it will be like your camping night! Tell them you know someone who has gone through something like this as a kid and I said everything turned out just fine so not to worry!
At the end, it will be like everyone putting on a pair of glasses. We will all start seeing things more clearly. As a result we will, finally, be on the same page.
If something is brewing, this is not something that is going to happen tonight, if it happens at all. There will be discussions back and forth. They will be posturing. Biden will (try) to look tough; Putin will look tough.
The Cuban Missile Crisis lasted 13 days.
I’m guessing you’ll hear lots of fear porn in the media. Most of it will be untrue, as 90% of it is already. However, we’re more protected than you know. Plus, Putin has gone on record saying his problem is with our leadership, not with the American people. What would he gain if he tried to blow us up when we could do the same to Russia within a 5 minute window? There is no upside to a wide-scale nuclear war between the U.S. and Russia.
I’m guessing the Russians are preparing for the same eventuality. Just because we are told to get out of Russia doesn’t mean we have anything to fear from the Russians. They may be afraid of the Europeans, the Ukrainians or even NATO and someone in the State Department doesn’t want us caught up in the mix.
Kind of like Turkey before the earthquake. The entire West was told to get out of Turkey 24 hours prior to when it happened. Unfortunately, nobody warned Turkey.
This goes without saying because we all know it’s true: Prayers are truly powerful. If God can place all the planets and stars in the sky and come up with a plan so they don’t bump into each other, He can certainly protect you and your family! Pray. God will hear you and it will make you feel better.
Oh, and no worrying!
Sound advice.
Here’s Larry Johnson’s take on this: https://sonar21.com/evan-gershkovich-meet-mr-julian-assange/
In this respect, I must disagree with Johnson about the moral equivalence between Julian Assange/Edward Snowden and this WSJ journalist. By all indications, the latter was a spy. Assange and Snowden were not.
Really, the Russian State Department equivalent should warn all Russians in the US to leave here immediately. If they can indict a former president for nothing, they can indict anyone.
I don’t think they even understand what they have done. Now ex-presidents are fair game for lawfare. Do you hear that Biden, Obama?
This advisory was initially posted on February 12, 2023 and last updated on March 2, 2023, as per this link.
https://travel.state.gov/content/travel/en/international-travel/before-you-go/informationforuscitizeninrussia.html
My first trip to Russia was in October 1993, the day after Yeltsin had tanks fire on the Russian White House. I have returned many times to Russia since then and have been living in Moscow since January 2020. In all that time, there has never been a period when the State Dept didn’t issue such a warning. It’s always the same. It’s a permanent fixture on America’s Moscow Embassy website. Nothing new here. To those who have inquired during the last 3 plus years, I always say that I feel much safer here than back in the States.
I would get the same fearmongering messages from the US Embassies when I lived in China and South Korea. The US State Department generally does not want Americans to perminately live abroad. Even our closest allies like Australia and the UK are deemed to be unsafe. This is the policy of American exceptualism.
Interesting.
Can anyone help me out here? I’m looking for “bone fide” –authentic-actual commentary from the Holy Elders or Saints of our Church that have actually recommended the piling up of, and storage of food surplus or anything else in times of trouble or uncertainty.
Cuz where I’m coming from, it has something to do with “Put not your trust in…” or “Whatever I tell you in the dark, speak in the light; and what you hear in the ear, preach on the housetops. And do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. But rather fear Him who is able to destroy both soul and body in hell. Are not two sparrows sold for a [i]copper coin? And not one of them falls to the ground apart from your Father’s will. But the very hairs of your head are all numbered. Do not fear therefore; you are of more value than many sparrows.” Matthew 10
Just asking. Where, and by whom did we Orthodox Christians EVER get that directive?
To fear the lack of worldly comfort and supposed “necessities” runs along the lines of NOT PUTTING YOUR TRUST IN GOD, doesn’t it?
I’m not saying don’t be ignorant or naive…but WHERE in the Lives of the Saints do we get this notion of “preparedness stockpiling?” I’m going out on a limb here…I think it’s a part of our former confessions…”Protestant” baggage we are still carrying…
The “run to the mountains ” warning IS NOT THE SAME. As the Missouri folk used to say: “Show me.” Just asking.
Doxa to Theo, John D
Monasteries are often the first to stalk up. St. Anthony’s was stocking up on staples a good year before the recession that started in 2007. That’s how I heard it was coming. From them! People come to the Monasteries when they’re in trouble. They need to be ready so they take them in.
Do you not shop or have food in your refrigerator? Do you not have extra in case someone else may need it? Of course.
You put your faith in God. So do I.
But I want to be the girl that God knows He can send his people to because I have extra beds and a pantry stocked with food. Somebody has to be able to take in the people He sends us. When I had my family, I took care of over 11 kids who didn’t have a place to go, a year or two each. I loved it! I had a woman with 5 kids stay with us. Another with 2 kids. I had six bedrooms; my family only used 3. They were all full most of the time.
I was single when I bought my home in Tulsa and it’s 3700 square feet. I have a dining room table that seats 10 and there have been times that were so many people here, I didn’t have a place to sit down! I’ve had multiple nuns stay here several times and up to 5 or 6 monks at one time. As George will tell you, my pantry is always full. When George doesn’t think I’m looking he carts some it off to the monastery! And when he isn’t looking, I just buy more. 😉
Among the sayings of St. Paisios, “Stockpiling is of little use: Food doesn’t keep for long before spoiling.”. Instead he advised, “For this reason, by learning to life a simple, moderate life here and now you’ll be able to get through those years. By getting a little bit of land, raising a little wheat and some potatoes, planting some olive trees, and keeping animals of some sort, a goat or chickens, the Christian will be able to feed his family. ”
https://orthodoxword.wordpress.com/2010/03/18/elder-paissios-holy-mount-athos-on-the-end-times/
We can also remember the “Parable of the Rich Fool” from the Gospel of St. Luke:
“The ground of a certain rich man brought forth plentifully: And he thought within himself, saying, What shall I do, because I have no room where to bestow my fruits? And he said, This will I do: I will pull down my barns, and build greater; and there will I bestow all my fruits and my goods. And I will say to my soul, Soul, thou hast much goods laid up for many years; take thine ease, eat, drink, and be merry. But God said unto him, Thou fool, this night thy soul shall be required of thee: then whose shall those things be, which thou hast provided?
So is he that layeth up treasure for himself, and is not rich toward God. And he said unto his disciples, Therefore I say unto you, Take no thought for your life, what ye shall eat; neither for the body, what ye shall put on. The life is more than meat, and the body is more than raiment. Consider the ravens: for they neither sow nor reap; which neither have storehouse nor barn; and God feedeth them: how much more are ye better than the fowls?”
Joseph, thank you for this. I should have read this before I responded above. Regardless, St Paissius was right about food spoiling and such, however with today’s technology, this is not as much a concern. Freezers are very good for storing meat and other foodstuffs for the long term. (Of course, that raises the problem of electricity, whether it can be shut off by the govt, etc. Perhaps generators can mitigate against this possibility?)
Preppers can be accused of chasing their tails, always trying to find a way to cheat the antichrist. In that sense, St Paissius was right.
Orthodox Christians in Ukraine, many have lost their homes and any food stockpiles they had in the current war. Some have simply lost their lives, regardless.
Emergency preparations are certainly a good idea, but probably the best thing we can do to prepare ourselves for difficult times is to fast and pray.
St. Mary of Egypt gives us a wonderful example of God’s providence, even in a barren desert land. God sustained her in the desert for some 47 years.
“WHERE in the Lives of the Saints do we get
this notion of “preparedness stockpiling?”
Will this do?
Genesis 41:15-36 [KJV]
Joseph Interprets Pharaoh’s Dreams
15 And Pharaoh said unto Joseph, I have dreamed a dream, and there is none that can interpret it: and I have heard say of thee, that thou canst understand a dream to interpret it.
16 And Joseph answered Pharaoh, saying, It is not in me: God shall give Pharaoh an answer of peace.
17 And Pharaoh said unto Joseph, In my dream, behold, I stood upon the bank of the river:
18 And, behold, there came up out of the river seven kine, fatfleshed and well favoured; and they fed in a meadow:
19 And, behold, seven other kine came up after them, poor and very ill favoured and leanfleshed, such as I never saw in all the land of Egypt for badness:
20 And the lean and the ill favoured kine did eat up the first seven fat kine:
21 And when they had eaten them up, it could not be known that they had eaten them; but they were still ill favoured, as at the beginning. So I awoke.
22 And I saw in my dream, and, behold, seven ears came up in one stalk, full and good:
23 And, behold, seven ears, withered, thin, and blasted with the east wind, sprung up after them:
24 And the thin ears devoured the seven good ears: and I told this unto the magicians; but there was none that could declare it to me.
25 And Joseph said unto Pharaoh, The dream of Pharaoh is one: God hath shewed Pharaoh what he is about to do.
26 The seven good kine are seven years; and the seven good ears are seven years: the dream is one.
27 And the seven thin and ill favoured kine that came up after them are seven years; and the seven empty ears blasted with the east wind shall be seven years of famine.
28 This is the thing which I have spoken unto Pharaoh: What God is about to do he sheweth unto Pharaoh.
29 Behold, there come seven years of great plenty throughout all the land of Egypt:
30 And there shall arise after them seven years of famine; and all the plenty shall be forgotten in the land of Egypt; and the famine shall consume the land;
31 And the plenty shall not be known in the land by reason of that famine following; for it shall be very grievous.
32 And for that the dream was doubled unto Pharaoh twice; it is because the thing is established by God, and God will shortly bring it to pass.
33 Now therefore let Pharaoh look out a man discreet and wise, and set him over the land of Egypt.
34 Let Pharaoh do this, and let him appoint officers over the land, and take up the fifth part of the land of Egypt in the seven plenteous years.
35 And let them gather all the food of those good years that come, and lay up corn under the hand of Pharaoh, and let them keep food in the cities.
36 And that food shall be for store to the land against the seven years of famine, which shall be in the land of Egypt; that the land perish not through the famine.
BTW:
Precious metals, gold-silver, diamonds, rubies…ALL WORTHLESS in the Soviet Union and Gulag under Stalin. A can of Caviar [the tuna of our day] couldn’t be purchased for a “fill-in-the-blank” gold-carat diamond ring.
Again, by whom, and where did this idea come from? NEVER in reading the Lives of the Saints, or Saint Seraphim [Rose] of Platina’s “Russia’s Catacomb Saints,” or “The New Martyrs of Russia,” or “The Gulag Archipelago” have I ever come across such advice. Again, just asking.
Doxa to Theo, John D
A far cry from America where every bauble comes at a price.
I doubt any saint was a prepper, and there’s no need for paranoia . You just need to use common sense. Now a revelation may come down from God telling you to stock up at which time the majority will ridicule you; Gen 6:21
I believe St Paissius said something about fasting and owning a little land during the Great Tribulation.
Intention is the key here. Orthodox Christians take to heart that the act of feeding and caring for the needy is as if we were feeding and caring for Christ Himself. Having goods and food on hand to care for our neighbors when natural disaster or man made strife hits us is obeying Scripture. Prepping to ensure our own long life is folly.
Agreed. I have a first aid kit in my cupboard not because I think itll make us all live forever but for the alleviation of suffering. If we can say at the end of the day “Gods will be done” then I think we will be fine, whether some decide to stock up on nonperishables, some decide to grow some potatoes, or some decide to do nothing different than they would otherwise. I think keeping Gods commandments and figuring out what the source of your actions is is key. (a person can prep to alleviate suffering as long as expedient, or they can prep to hoard food for themselves while they watch others starve. a person can NOT prep due to that being how they are led to put trust in God and own no food except the daily bread, or they could NOT prep because they just cant be bothered and would rather sit around and be idle….its all contextual).