One thing that is not mis-or-disinformation coming from the battlefields of Ukraine is that real people are dying or trying their damnedest not to. Those remaining behind — and there are plenty — depend on Christian leaders for food, transportation, and material and spiritual help.
PJ Media reported exclusively on Pastor Anatoly, who chose to remain in Kyiv with parishioners who can’t or won’t leave. The rest of the church has scattered, fleeing to the safety of Poland, Germany, and other safe places.
In a phone call arranged by a California church on Friday, the pastor was holed up in a darkened underground room. After nine days since the Russian onslaught began, Anatoly traded his usual calm for righteous anger at people who have God-given tools but refuse to use them to help.
“If all Christians do something we can stop this,” the pastor implored. “This is between freedom and dictatorship,” he told those on the phone call. He apologized for being “aggressive,” as he put it, but, “I’m almost out of any energy. But what do you have? God spoke to you now.”
Anatoly begged the church to pray to “stop Putin.”
He also asked President Joe Biden to intervene. “Talk to Biden!” Later he urged, “We cannot be quiet.” And of course, he urged Christians to find organizations already established to help them with food, transportation, and medicine.
The stories from Ukraine are fraught. A Ukrainian woman said there is no food or water in Mariupol, which is under siege by Russian troops. The so-called “green corridor” established to allow civilians a way to flee is shut down out of Mariupol. The Wall Street Journal reports that an agreement to allow civilians to evacuate from that city broke down in a hail of charges and counter-charges by both sides.
Ukraine charges that Putin’s forces are firing on civilians, including children.
Russia and Ukraine agreed to open humanitarian corridors for evacuating civilians from the besieged eastern Ukrainian cities of Mariupol and Volnovakha https://t.co/bKe6DhyH8H
— The Wall Street Journal (@WSJ) March 5, 2022
A pastor from Mariupol said he couldn’t believe he was still alive as he lives 15 minutes from the front of the fighting. He held out little hope that his sons, soldiers in the Ukraine Army, would be alive by Saturday morning because the fighting is so fierce. The pastor says he’s busy setting up an orphanage for children and trying to find supplies for people cut off. “It is very crazy dangerous. A huge part of my city is destroyed. Many people killed. Nobody cares … ”
Pastor Anatoly grew angrier upon reflecting how “many kids died” in the hail of Russian fire.
The stakes for Ukraine are as much spiritual as physical.
In our previous conversation, Anatoly told me he knew what plans Putin has for the church — a takeover. As he said in my conversation with him for The Adult in the Room Podcast, Anatoly described what Putin would do to the Ukrainian church. He predicted that Putin would take over the church like he does in Russia where “the FSB has taken over the Russian churches in a way that has become so familiar to Americans who observe how billionaire oligarchs take over elections, news outlets, and other essential cultural institutions. He floods them with rubles from his foundation.”
A woman who fled with her family said that they spent four days in their car trying to get away from the fighting. She’s alive with her husband and baby.
The church is answering. A Christian worker from Germany told of safe houses being set up to take in Ukrainians. He’s helping to move food around the country with the help of brave truck drivers.
They need your prayers.
And that’s also not mis-or-disinformation.
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