Personal announcement: three short items

Dear friends,

I have to leave the house for most of the day, but I want to tell you the following before I do so.

1) I am desperately looking for a full English translation of the statement made by Igor Strelkov about the lack of men volunteering  for combat duties in the Donetsk region.  He made it either on Sunday or on Saturday.  It's about 10 min long when read in Russian.  If you see it, please email me the text or send me the link.

2) My recent "religious interlude" post was just that.  An interlude.  So, to the great relief of those who are not interested by religious issues, I will not have the time to reply to all the comments (sorry!), but I leave you in good hands as there are some *extremely* knowledgeable Orthodox Christian and Muslim commentators/posters in this thread to whom you can submit any questions or comments you might have on this topic.

3) I am following the events in the Ukraine and I am preparing a SITREP to be written up ASAP.  The bottom line right now is: too early to call.  The situation is extremely complex and fluid and I would urge everybody to avoid jumping to conclusions at this point.

FYI - If/when I don't post and only moderate comments it is usually because I am "mobile" (driving in my van for work) and while I can do that while waiting in the car or on a red light, I cannot post full-length articles.  However, I have a hotspot in the car and an (awesome) Asus Nexus 7 (2014) tablet with me.  I can watch TV channels like RussiaToday, PressTV or TeleSur (especially Russian and Ukrainian ones), I can stream radio and I can read so I am always keeping myself informed.  What I cannot do is reply to emails or comments.  Please keep that in mind if I appear to be slow to reply.

With a new SITREP hopefully out soon, many thanks and kind regards,

The Saker