I totally agree with what Eugene has said.
Honourable Senators, thank you very much for inviting me here today. As I said before, I totally agree with what Mr. Czolij has mentioned. But I'd like to have my presentation approach it from a little bit different standpoint.
I have gratefully been a Canadian citizen since 1999. Before that, I came to Canada in 1990, before the breakup of the Soviet Union. I bought this hat and I brought it here and I wear it all the time to support the Canadian team in the Olympics.
What I wanted to say is not as much a political statement as personal experience. I believe in democracy. I love a democracy, and this is the only way for people to live. I fluently speak Russian. I check the media and I wanted to bring to your attention a couple of things. Before I came to Canada, Ukraine was a part of the Soviet Union and most of us young men at the age of 18 were drafted into the military forces. I was in the Soviet Army as well. I served in eastern Germany. I was a topographer-cartographer. I remember that for the year I served in there, every morning, day after day we had a political preparation. Even though the Soviet Union was breaking up and people saw it, we had to learn the works of Lenin, of the Communist Party, and we had to affirm every morning that we believed in the Soviet Union and that we would fight to the death for that country. Thank God, that empire has fallen.
It has fallen at a very expensive price. Many of my co-villagers—I was born in a village—gave up their lives for the Soviet cause in Afghanistan and I remember mothers crying at the graves of those people who died without understanding why. The reason I said I believe in democracy is because this is the only way for a human being to live. As a priest I believe it's in Genesis, the first book of the bible, which says we are created in the image of God. We are free and that freedom has to be honoured and given to everybody.
I'm not here to preach. The reason I pointed out that I served in the Soviet Army is that Putin is a KGB product. As one of the political commentators from Russia said, being part of the KGB is not a profession, it's a calling, a genotype. The sadist has to be there, the one who does not question the authority, the one who does not have any regrets about the action that happens. The only way to win is to win by force, by power, by any means.
The reason why I'm bringing this up is not because I'm a psychoanalyst or something like that, I'm not here to analyze this. But from that perspective I know it will take a very strong effort on behalf of NATO and the entire world community to stop this man. You look at news releases and you see Mr. Putin riding the horse, flying the plane, and stuff like that. It's almost like déjà vu going back to Saddam Hussein and Muammar Gaddafi. That's a man who has unlimited power and unlimited financial resources. He is the grand thief of the world. There is speculation that his wealth is between $130 billion to $150 billion. He's surrounded himself with like-minded people. The KGB and now Federal Security Service, the security bureau in Russia, became de facto embezzlers, the people who take the funds that come from those illegal options. They act in a very determined way.
I may be wrong, but I believe Russia has over 100 channels that are televised across that great country and each and every one of those channels is censored. Whatever you say, there's a three- to five-second delay. They interviewed a member of the parliament from Crimea who said there's really no chaos here or anything like that. It was live streaming on Russian television. He was talking on the phone. He said there's nothing really happening; the only crooks we have in Crimea are members of the regional parties who steal the money. He kept going on, but then right away his phone would hang up and they would say there's a terrible situation in Ukraine right now and we are experiencing technical difficulties.
It's not only censoring in the media. There's also the big political machine the KGB developed over the 70 years of its existence, which exists now too, to brainwash people. Even though it works so hard with that many channels, there are people who wake up and say they can't go against their brothers. They're our neighbours. It's suicide.
So there are reports.... Before I came here, I read that Russian troops gave Ukrainian troops—I'm not sure if it's in Crimea or across Ukraine—until 5 a.m. to give up their weapons. Five a.m. is about 10 p.m. our time, so we have about five hours.
I wanted to believe—because I never prayed as hard as I prayed today—that the military intervention would not happen, but I'm also a realistic person. A man who is in power who is not capable of remorse and going back, I'm not quite sure if he'll go back.
That's why if we're talking here.... I'm not sure if we're too late, but it has to be heard that the man in charge is truly a maniac, if you want to say it, no different than Stalin was. Thank God for all the media there, so at least we have an opportunity to see rounded coverage of the events versus what happened in 1932-33. 1932-33 is the only one we know of so far of what happened in Ukraine, or for that matter in the entire Soviet Union.
I have a small church here in Ottawa. My parishioners are Russians as well as Ukrainians and Belarusians and stuff like that. We are a church and we welcome everybody. Rather than sitting here, I'd rather go with my friend who sits—if you know where Bronson Avenue is, there's a drive off from the bridge there.... I have a friend there, Benny, who's a money beggar, but once a week we go to McDonald's and we talk. I'd rather be there. I respect all your work, but it's not my job to make political statements. Unfortunately, I'm here to plead, to say that we are, at the very least, on the brink of another humanitarian catastrophe.
If we were to take the pessimistic observation and see Putin for the maniac he is, who was given full authority to command the forces and to do whatever he deems necessary by his senate, I believe, the council of the federation.... I don't want to believe it, but realistically I expect that a military conflict will unfold.
I also want to ask for two more things. One of the people who was here before me, the young lady Lada Roslycky, analyzed the Black Sea fleet. She said to coordinate the efforts, not only of the larger members of NATO but also Turkey, Romania, Bulgaria, at that point in time, to help support, prevent, and show the unity of the world community in condemning any type of violence.
Honestly, I don't want a repetition of the scenario that happened in Georgia. When that happened in Georgia, we also prayed for them. Our church prays for all catastrophes that happen in the world, whether it is in Quebec when so many innocent people died because of the catastrophe with the derailing of the train, or in Georgia or anywhere else. Human life is so precious.
The second thing, continuing on the topic that human life is so precious—and it's my own statement—I also would like, if that were to happen, God forbid, that Canada, as it always has, opened a simplified process for the refugees to be able to come to Canada.
I thank you all for your attention.