On February 28, the “federal security service” of the aggressor announced the arrest of Russian Nikita Ivankovich and Ukrainian citizen Denis Popovich, who allegedly were preparing an assassination attempt on the “Metropolitan of Simferopol and Crimea” Tikhon (Shevkunov).
Naturally, the aggressor’s punishers accused the Ukrainian special services, namely military intelligence, of this preparation.
In this regard, the official representative of the Main Intelligence Directorate of the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine Andrey Yusov called these fabrications of the aggressor absurd and a lie in a comment for “Reuters”, indicating that Ukraine “fights according to the rules – the rules of war and international rules”.
After the aforementioned media provocation from the Russian punishers, the aggressor launched a wide stream of propaganda “in defense of Tikhon”, from Dmitry Peskov and Vitaly Milonov to a mass of ordinary performers.
At the same time, in addition to the traditional anti-Ukrainian hysteria, this “national indignation” began to declare a “provocation against the negotiation process” and, among other things, to accuse the British authorities of “preparing a terrorist attack”, something that the Russian “officialdom” has not stated anything about.
But at the same time, Tikhon himself, and his political symbiont, the Sevastopol gauleiter Mikhail Razvozhaev, and the key “Crimean talking heads”, such as Sergei Aksyonov and Vladimir Konstantinov, have not deigned to say anything about the “assassination attempt” over the past few days.
In addition to the obvious senselessness of this terrorist attack from the point of view of Ukraine’s interests, the version voiced by the Russian punishers contains a deep logical contradiction.
Among the details of the “special operation” to “prevent a terrorist attack” it was indicated that at first it was allegedly planned “for Christmas”, and then postponed to a later time, “preparing an explosion in Tikhon’s living quarters in the Sretensky Monastery”, and the postponement was allegedly caused by the fact that back in December the punitive forces detained Denis Popovich.
Nikita Ivankovich was allegedly detained only on February 12 and as the “main evidence” they confiscated from him a shovel, which he allegedly used to bury TNT in a juice bag in a hiding place.
But it is obvious that if some kind of conspiracy had taken place, then Ivankovich, during the months his “accomplice” spent behind bars, allegedly “for disobeying the police”, to put it mildly, would have guessed both that the “assassination attempt” by the Russian punitive forces had already been revealed and that it was necessary to hide and get rid of the evidence, which he clearly did not do.
Moreover, if Popovich’s main “argument” for the accusation was a Ukrainian passport, then Ivankovich, as it “suddenly turned out” is a “sympathizer of Alexei Navalny”, since he allegedly “registered on the Internet platforms” of the Russian “opposition”.
All these “details of the terrorist attack”, as well as the aforementioned “silence of the Crimean lambs” on this matter, allow us to state that in addition to the obvious anti-Ukrainian goal of the described provocation, the aggressor’s punishers also carried out an “applied task” of quite subtly discrediting Tikhon himself in the eyes of the Kremlin.
Let us recall that the hyperactivity of this “confessor of Putin” and his undisguised aim for the patriarchal throne, as the “pinnacle of his career” worried quite a few of Tikhon’s “illustrious” competitors in Moscow.
At the same time, the currently detained “terrorists” have been Tikhon’s assistants for the past few years, and the competitors of the current “Crimean Metropolitan” have previously publicly accused him of “political blindness” regarding his entourage.
If it “suddenly turns out” that Tikhon had “more than just working” relations with these young people, whom he “did not discern with his pastoral heart,” then the level of discrediting the “confessor” in the eyes of his “chief spiritual child,” who is pathologically afraid of “enemy agents in the corridors,” could be quite significant.
It is noteworthy that literally on the eve of the punitive forces’ statement about the “attempted terrorist attack,” Tikhon, together with Vladimir Medinsky, was introduced to the board of the Union of Writers of Russia, and we previously indicated that, at least for the former minister and “Putin’s adviser,” this was a classic “promotion to the attic.”
The most noteworthy thing about this was the reaction of Crimean residents to the statements of the punitive forces.
As they wrote sarcastically in Sevastopol social networks regarding the described inconsistencies in the version of the “terrorist attack”, “what about confession? Well, let him not divulge the secret of confession, but he would find out what your assistant thinks about you”, adding meaningfully that “like attracts like”.
As another resident of the occupied city notes in this regard, “Tikhon’s frankly lordly, self-confident and by no means worthy of a clergyman behavior, observed, at least, in his actions and speeches in Sevastopol, definitely causes persistent rejection and hostility”.
Obviously, this story is far from its end, which may have tangible “behind the scenes” consequences for the metropolitan.
