"There is no purgatory for war criminals. They go straight to hell, ambassador."
— Ukraine's UN ambassador Sergiy Kyslytsya to Russia's UN ambassador Vassily Nebenzia, at the UN Security Council, Wednesday 23rd February 2022.
While we must hope that even the most hardened sinner would repent and be saved ere they die, lest they go straight to hell, realistically there is a but a scant chance of that happening, bar a miracle – and it seems unlikely that Putin, in his own eyes the Autocrat of All the Russias, real and imagined, fondly picturing himself as the worthy heir of Catherine the Great (!), would be the recipient of such; for while the Good Thief, moved by grace, was saved by Christ, it was permitted that Judas should hang himself.
Pray for Ukraine, wickedly invaded by Russia at the behest of an evil man; may the many who will die make their peace with God; may those who defend Ukraine fight manfully in the cause of right, knowing that God can give victory either to many or to few; and, as Churchill put it, in the dark days of May 1940:
“Arm yourselves, and be ye men of valour, and be in readiness for the conflict; for it is better for us to perish in battle than to look upon the Outrage of our nation and our altar. As the Will of God is in Heaven, even so let it be.” (Cf. 1 Machabees 3:58, 59, 60)
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