Two hours before the fireworks in the Oval Office between Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and U.S. President Donald Trump Friday, I met with a delegation of Ukrainian church leaders from Kyiv. Their visit had been long planned, and it only happened to coincide with the high-stakes presidential meeting. The pastors’ goal was simple but urgent: to thank the United States and encourage continued American support for their beleaguered nation.
Our discussion was a somber one, held in a beautiful space across the Potomac River from Washington, D.C. With my past diplomatic work focused on international religious freedom, I welcomed the opportunity to learn about conditions on the ground. The pastors shared firsthand accounts of Russia’s indiscriminate killing, religious persecution, and the kidnapping of Ukrainian children. Ukraine, facing an existential threat from its much larger neighbor, needs the world to understand what is truly at stake. And especially Americans of faith.
Three years ago, Russia launched its brutal invasion of Ukraine, triggering a humanitarian catastrophe. Russian President Vladimir Putin invoked religion as part of his justification, believing that their shared Orthodox Christian history lent credibility to his imperial ambitions. But Ukrainians begged to differ. Their courage, combined with U.S. and European support, has thus far prevented Putin from erasing Ukraine from the map.
Ukraine, in many ways, is a religious success story compared to its Russian neighbor. No country is perfect, and antisemitism and Islamophobia exist, as they do in many parts of the world. Many were concerned, including myself, about a religion law passed last fall banning the Russian Orthodox Church and organizations tied with nations at war with Ukraine. The law laid out a process for review, which has not resulted in widespread Russian Orthodox church closures as some feared. Different expressions of Orthodoxy coexist peacefully. Protestant denominations, the Catholic Church, and Judaism have all found a place in Ukraine’s social fabric. Islam is practiced freely. The parliament just established a national day of prayer.
Compared to the former Soviet Union, Ukraine stands out as a model of religious pluralism.The Ukrainian government has protected space where faith can be freely expressed without fear of repression. Ukraine looks more like the United States in its approach to religious freedom than it does Russia.
In comparison, Russia remains lightyears behind, both with how it treats religious freedom domestically and in occupied Ukrainian territory. Russia’s abysmal domestic record on religious freedom demonstrates what is at stake should Putin prevail in Ukraine. In a rare area of agreement between the first Trump administration and Biden administration, both have designated Russia as a religious persecutor in every year since 2020.
Others agree. The International Religious Freedom or Belief Alliance, a coalition of countries committed to religious freedom launched during the first Trump administration, issued a statement on the anniversary of the invasion outlining many of Russia’s transgressions in the occupied territories and targeting within Ukraine. As one Ukrainian monitoring group reported, “Over 630 places of worship, including churches, mosques, synagogues, and houses of prayer, have been destroyed or damaged by Russian shelling.” UNESCO, the United Nations agency tasked with preserving cultural and religious heritage, has also verified damage to 149 religious sites due to Russian attacks.
The Ukrainian delegation carried three key messages for America’s faithful. First, they wanted to dispel Russian misinformation: Ukrainians enjoy full religious freedom. Second, they sought to correct the misplaced concerns about persecution by the Ukrainian government; the real persecution is happening in Russian-occupied territories. Finally, and most desperately, they begged for help in recovering the 20,000 Ukrainian children kidnapped by Russia.
One evangelical leader put it bluntly: This war is not about land, which Russia has plenty of. This war is about identity. Russia wants to erase Ukrainian identity from existence. It is an existential struggle.
Several pastors drew an alarming comparison to ISIS. Like ISIS, Russia has kidnapped children, brainwashed them, and forced them to fight against their own people. Like ISIS, Russia has developed religious justifications for genocide. One pastor compared Patriarch Kirill of the Russian Orthodox Church calling for a “holy war” like ISIS calling for jihad. Kirill has provided religious justification for Russia’s war crimes, using faith as a weapon to subjugate and destroy.
A Baptist leader explained that while the West views the war through a logical lens, Putin sees it through an ideological—even spiritual—framework. In other words, the United States is trying to discern Putin’s motivations based on logic and reason. However, they explained, Putin believes in the doctrine of Russkiy Mir (Russian World). Putin wants to revive the old Russian Empire, with the state and the Russian Orthodox Church working in tandem to oppress all other religious expressions. Nowhere is this clearer than in occupied eastern Ukraine.
The pastors shared how, in occupied Ukraine, religious leaders who refuse to bend to Russia face a grim fate. Many pastors have been “taken to the basement”—a chilling euphemism for torture and likely death. The delegation knew of at least 36 ministers from different denominations who had disappeared this way.
Now, after Friday’s disastrous Oval Office meeting between Zelensky and Trump, what’s next?
Ukraine is not asking for American soldiers. It is not asking for America to fight its war. It simply asks for continued support in its struggle for survival. It hopes for a partnership to develop Ukraine’s natural resources and a stronger balance of support among the U.S. and European allies. If negotiations with Russia do not include the return of occupied territories, the pastors implored that the United States insist on religious freedom in occupied areas and the return of the kidnapped children. The Trump administration maintaining Russia as a “country of particular concern” for severe religious freedom violations is also crucial.
As one Baptist leader put it Friday, “The United States has been blessed by God to be a light to the world. By helping Ukraine, you are being the United States. We are praying for a coalition of good to stand against the coalition of evil—Russia, China, Iran, and others.”
Ukraine’s fight is an existential battle, but most Americans do not realize it. Ukraine is fighting for its survival, but also for the very values that America holds dear—freedom, democracy, and faith. If the world fails Ukraine now, it will not be long before Putin and his allies set their sights on other targets. When asked about trusting Putin, the pastors I met with were unequivocal. “All of history speaks against that stupidity,” one said. They urged America to not rely on promises from Putin.
For the Ukrainian delegation, the message was clear. This is not just a war of weapons. It is a war of survival, a war of identities, and a war for the soul of a nation. Millions of Ukrainians are praying for U.S. support. America, they implored, must not turn away.
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