 I mean, the Russians are super good at chess, right? They wouldn't start taking pieces unless they knew what they were doing. But alright, let's cover the news. Hello greetings and good evenings on these unsettling evenings. All eyes are on Russia and Ukraine continually these days as we observe the great invasion which began on the morning of February 24th, a Thursday. Russia invaded their neighboring country by shelling and rocket attacks on Ukraine's capital and other major cities. In anticipation of this, in the weeks prior, Ukraine had requested and begun to receive weapons from Western countries, anti-tank systems from the US and UK, as well as ammo and anti-aircraft missiles from the Baltic states, with the European Union pledging over a billion euros in assistance. Despite this, NATO, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, is not actually supporting Ukraine in this battle, due to Ukraine not being a part of NATO just yet. And if NATO were to get involved, we would very likely and quickly step into World War III, so everyone's on high alert and watching closely. Indeed, Ukraine is largely standing alone. Over the last several days, we've seen Ukraine lose control of the Chernobyl nuclear site, but also holding their own and slowing the Russian advance on key cities. As of Monday morning, Russian and Ukrainian officials have begun to sit down and have face-to-face talks for the first time since the war started. Yet the Russian military did confirm they had their finger on the nuclear option, just in case. So, you know, tension is still pretty high. In response to the attacks, very quickly Canada, the US and many other countries responded by placing sanctions on Russia. This means cutting off trade with Putin, which hurts the Russian economy, though some reports are saying that these sanctions also negatively affect those who are placing them. Putin brushed off these sanctions nonchalantly, and fired back at the West, calling them an empire of lies. I guess his thinking is, sure, he's violent, but at least he's honest about it. But even back home for Putin, there's trouble brewing, as not all Russians agree with Putin's war, as a fringe minority seem to have appeared in Moscow and other cities protesting the attack on Ukraine. But the authorities were having none of that. They quickly cracked down on critical voices, with many videos appearing of Russians being arrested on the streets in Moscow. The Russian government has since put out statements now, reminding citizens that unauthorized protests are against the law. So wait, how does one get their protests authorized? It's a trap! Sure seems that way. What do you think? Who's the good guy here? Everyone thinks they're the good guy. The real question is, who can practice truth, love, and authenticity the most? The Tao De Ching says that whoever doesn't have an enemy will surely win in a battle of opposites. It's also in the Bhagavad Gita, Arjuna won in the end because he fought with God and love in his heart. Okay, but of course, there's a much deeper story happening here too. Here at Spirit News we believe in unity consciousness, and so we're going to attempt to look at all sides of the stories and illuminate a bigger picture about what is going on. Let's see what everyone is saying about this event in an attempt to find a higher truth. To be clear, this is not to condone any of the violence or war, nor to take sides one way or another. Now most western sources paint Russia as a bully on the playground, which might be completely true. But Russia says that they are trying to demilitarize Ukraine, putting an end to a serious and widely unreported war that has been growing for eight years between the two countries. According to the representative of Russia, for years the western media kept silent on all of this, ignoring that more than 13,000 people have died in the Donbas, the eastern most part of Ukraine, as a result of this largely unreported war. While Russia provided them with humanitarian aid, Kiev besieged them by cutting off trade, finance, and even utilities. The western media will largely portray Ukraine as the innocent good guys and Russia as the bad guys, but looking deeper into Ukraine's politics shows that their history is, well, just as messy as everyone else. The events ongoing today largely has to do with things that took place over 30 years ago when the Soviet Union fell and many independent states emerged, one of which included Ukraine, a rather neutral country between the east and the west. But historically, before the fall of the Soviet Union, people freely traveled between these different countries because they were not different, they were unified. Putin seems to want to bring about a strengthening of Russia and a reunification now with Ukraine for various political and defensive reasons. One factor that is less discussed in the western mainstream media is that ever since NATO and Russia were established after the Soviet collapse, NATO has slowly but surely broken many past agreements with Russia and expanded to include a larger number of countries, slowly moving closer to the Russian border over 30 years. And there have been many talks with Ukraine joining them too. But this, to Putin, feels like a passive-aggressive play of slowly moving towards his side of the chessboard but never actually making any attacking moves. Now of course this is ultimately predicated on the idea that NATO is, or could be a hostile enemy towards Russia in the future, which of course NATO would deny. But if we look at how Putin is feeling about it, and feelings are important, it kind of feels like one of those situations you see in movies where there is a bully who's really mean to another kid but never actually throws a punch and then after feeling emotionally abused for a while, the other kid goes into a violent rampage and then they're the one that gets into trouble. To be clear, I'm not trying to say that NATO intrinsically is a bully or even has hostile intentions but we can see that they definitely have broken agreements not to expand and thus expanded closer to Russia and do seem to have an interest of being an even greater world power. We recently made a video called Decentralized Globalism about just this. NATO may truly have an intention here to unify the world, creating a new world order with a one world government. So check that video out if you're interested to go deeper. This just in! It seems that earlier this week, the Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky was barricaded in his office in Kiev and signed an application to join the European Union. It seems that the Russian aggression is naturally pushing Ukraine into the arms of another. And apparently, Putin is now also shelling civilians, so, karmically, that's probably not going to go well for him. According to Western sources, Putin is attempting not just to topple the Ukrainian leader but also secure Ukraine's capital and transform it into a modern version of a Soviet-style satellite state such as neighboring Belarus. They claim that Putin intends to reshape European security to suit Russia and to put NATO on the back foot through his display of military force in Ukraine. Further, a wonderful presentation by RealLifeLore on YouTube also explained that energy is likely a large part of this, as Russia's economy is strong due to selling their oil to the oil-hungry Western countries in Europe. But Ukraine's sovereignty and even joining NATO could massively threaten Russia's strength in this area. And so Putin is doing whatever he can to stop this from happening. To use a chess analogy, it looks to me like there are two games that Russia is playing. Whether or not you see NATO or Ukraine as playing along. In one, Ukraine could be seen like a pawn in NATO's game, one space from the end of the board. And if they move forward that one space, representing joining NATO, that pawn is promoted into a queen in NATO's military and a much bigger threat to Russia. In anticipation of that, Putin went for the pawn. And here we are. It's probably fair to say too that Putin feels like that Ukrainian pawn was actually his piece originally, so he might be feeling a little entitled here. In the second game, which Russia kind of forced Ukraine to play, it seems to be a fight for Ukraine's life and even sovereignty. But they have all been standing together to hold their own and defend their country. Ukraine does look a bit stuck in the middle of the whole thing, just trying to find out who they are. Because Ukraine is a melting pot of cultural diversity in a really beautiful way, and has people from both Russia and Europe living there. And these are people who love and care for each other and want to protect each other. In this, Ukraine seems to represent a sort of unity consciousness between the east and the west. But a house divided against itself cannot stand. But alas, they are standing together. While from the outside, NATO forces have military posted all around the country, but for the time they are not going to fight. Which, as we discussed, big booms everywhere probably. Indeed, it is a time of great stiffness and attention, and many hold fear around the potential of a greater war. Fear, recently identified as an even greater virus than COVID, keeps us stuck in our patterns, and lock us into habits of thinking that compel us into limitation and suffering. Today, we stand at another crossroad, asking ourselves, how far will humanity push things this time? But if we allow ourselves to be consumed in this fear, we miss out on the bigger, bigger picture. Which might just be that Russia is specifically targeting U.S. bioweapon labs, just like the one that made COVID, but which are based in Ukraine. A Twitter user put the story together, and then was quickly banned from Twitter outright. So, because of that reason, I don't think I can go into it anymore without probably having this video taken down. But wait, there's a bigger, bigger, bigger picture too. For most of us, we're sitting here, watching the whole thing unfold. Of course, there are people on the ground getting hurt and killed, and things are really intense for many people right now. But for most of us around the world watching, we have an opportunity to check ourselves and see how we're choosing to respond. Fear stops you from stepping fully into your inner light, connecting with your Higher Self, and creating true peace and lasting freedom in your reality by the virtue of your clarity of mind, peace of emotion, and graceful action. If we have a World War III, it will be in divine order, because everything is a part of the same cosmic oneness that many through time have called God, Dow, or Spirit. And we give thanks today for the love that is here, all around us waiting for us to lay down our shields, lay down our swords, give up our fight, and open ourselves to love and higher truth. So thank you so much for watching, and now a special word from our cameraman. Oh, that's me. I suddenly feel so in the spot. Okay, let's go outside. Much better. 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