Between 1933 and 1938, hundreds of Ukraine’s brightest minds were executed, imprisoned, or forced into silence. The regime targeted the very idea of Ukrainian identity.

Stalin, determined to eliminate Ukrainian nationalism and any threat of separatism, resolved to break the will of the Ukrainian people, not with guns, but with hunger.

In war, the first casualty is truth. Nowhere is this more evident than in the long and brutal campaign waged by Moscow — not only against Ukraine’s sovereignty but against its very identity.

Between January and April 2025, 12 prosecutions were brought against evangelical pastors. Most were Baptists, allegedly preaching to non-believers without notifying the authorities.

Ukrainian evangelical churches invited Jan Wessels. “I was deeply impressed by the resilience of the Ukrainian society and the pivotal role that churches play in fostering this resilience”, he told Evangelical Focus.

A cry for peace and justice has come this week from the All Ukrainian Council of Churches and Religious Organisations. “We are not merely asking — we are crying out. Not for weapons — but for solidarity. Not for sympathy — but for a response. Not for kind words — but for moral and spiritual leadership”.

‘No God But Theirs’ (a one-hour documentary in English) tells the case of Melitopol, a Russian-occupied city in southeastern Ukraine where Christians responded to the invasion with public prayer and mutual support.

The FEREDE is “deeply concerned” about the suffering of children and elderly and prays for “the resumption of serious negotiations leading to a just and sustainable peace”.

The second day of the European Congress on Evangelism focused on the importance of trusting the Bible. Persecuted Christians from Africa and Middle East shared their testimonies, as participants prayed for the Ukraine war after Franklin Graham met Zelenskyy.

The Ukrainians who travelled to Wisła, Poland, to attend the ELF conference did not talk about numbers. They shared stories about children suffering from vicarious trauma, regular Christians praying with soldiers on the front line, and the resilient action of churches serving displaced families.

Just as Jesus is betrayed by a close follower and handed over to unjust powers, Ukraine has faced aggression from a neighbouring nation with deep historical ties.

The “rumours of war” should not take Christians by surprise. Churches must “read the times”, commit to real peacemaking, and pray “lucid” and “not abstract” prayers. Leaders from Sweden, France, Portugal and Spain spoke to Evangelical Focus.

After a first drone damaged the Emmanuil church at night, a second explosion killed a father and his 5-year-old daughter, leaving the mother hospitalised. The family was involved in Christian ministry and had fled eastern Ukraine.

This may be the end of an era, as it was for Augustine when Rome fell; or for the wartime generation enduring the terror of German nationalism. But this is not yet the end. 

Jan Wessels, co-general secretary of the European Evangelical Alliance, speaks to Evangelical Focus. Amid tensions, “our role is to keep the evangelical family together, keep people talking to each other and praying together”, he says.

How should political and Christian leaders respond as a US president unhinges the world order?

Snippets of ‘a better story’ could be heard last week at the ARC conference. But what we need is not a white, Anglo-American, conservative, capitalist, Christian nationalist story attempting to turn the clock back to ‘Christendom’.

A nation whose leaders once spoke of the USA as a “city on a hill” and “the light of the world” is now having a president who is projecting imperial ambitions (similar to those of the Russian Federation) with a distinctly transactional mindset.

Three years after Russia's invasion of Ukraine, TWR is sharing the hope of Jesus in the region and calls to pray.

We will not stop praying. We are determined and compelled by love to stand in the gap for the vulnerable and oppressed. Three years is enough. We pray for sustainable peace and justice.

The United States should act in accordance with the beliefs it claims to hold, says Ruslan Kukharchuck. Other evangelicals in Europe are wondering if US Christian ministries will also cool down their relationship with churches on this side of the Atlantic.

A Ukrainian evangelical leader calls on Europeans to “take primary responsibility” in the resolution of the conflict.

The emphasis on reconciliation, faith in the workplace, and the next generation offers a model for how the Ukrainian church can address its own context.

Two and a half years after the Russian invasion, Germany was hosting more than one million people. Together with Ukraine and the Czech Republic, they have taken in 60% of all refugees in the union.

Few remember how distrusting, fearful and uncertain the post-war years of the late 1940s were, with lives, bodies, families, cities and nations having been broken, disrupted and destroyed. How do you rebuild out of such brokenness?