Try as we might, we’re having a hard time figuring out why this conflict is even happening in Ukraine. We can see current reports at websites like…
We’ve studied the accompanying map. (Click “Read More” to see it for yourself.)
We have listened to videos like the explainer at https://youtu.be/If61baWF4GE.
But, in spite of our best efforts, we’re just not very political. We still can’t quite grasp why a nation would attack a neighbor’s homes and civilians. We don’t like the surge of homeless people (refugees) that it creates. We don’t like the death and suffering. Would you please double-down and pray harder with us for an end to this conflict?
Dear Doug,
I’ve been researching Ukraine for the sake of “praying with knowledge” since the Maidan square protests in 2014 in Ukraine. I had just finished praying through the Operation World pages for Ukraine, and realized then that there was a higher percentage of Evangelicals there, freedom of religion, and that the church in Ukraine was already, though small, sending “workers” to Russia and other nations. I realized it was a country not as ruined by the negative elements of the west, with hearts more open to the gospel. Within months, though the Ukrainian congress voted to sign an agreement strengthening their ties with the E.U., the Russian puppet president Yanukovich wouldn’t sign. The people occupied Maidan Square in Kyiv in protest for almost a year before Yanukovich sent special forces into the crowd, killing 100. The crowd then stormed the presidential palace, and Yanukovich was flown to safety in Moscow, after embezzling 1/2 of the entire national budget. When Putin realized Ukrainians wanted to move away from the (analysts say) fascist government in Russia, Putin took Crimea and invaded. Russia and Ukraine have a common proto-civilization called Kievan Rus, from the 10th century. Kiev was the cultural center. Centuries later a different power center started developing in Moscow, and since then they diverged into distinct but similar languages and cultures. Ukraine was slowly assimilated by Russia. The western 1/4 to 1/5 of Ukraine was never in Russian hands until the same time they took the rest of Eastern Europein 1945; it took centuries to slowly take control of the other 3/4. Ukraine rebelled when the communists took over in 1917 and fought a war of independence which ended in dividing Ukraine between Russia, Poland, Czechoslovakia and Romania. For a few years Uikraine was independent before the Soviet Union absorbed them. Ethnic Russians and Ukrainians have always gotten along well in Ukraine. The problem lies much in Putin, a KGB agent in the Soviet Union, who, in the same century that Stalin, Hitler, Lenin and Mao Zedong killed over 100 million people collectively in the name of atheism, Putin publicly said the worst tragedy in that century was the breakup of the Soviet Union. Analysts say it is pure fascism- about Russian dominance, and revenge and hatred for the west for winning the cold war. Experts say Russia’s government is the largest crime syndicate on earth. Current anti war protests in Russia show that not all Russians agree with their government’s worldview. Putin has been working since he came to power to reclaim former Soviet countries, including Moldova (Transnistria region) and Georgia (Abkhazia and South Ossetia). Like most dictators, Putin is also paranoid, and does see Ukraine joining NATO as a security threat. This is because he is projecting his own worldview on the west (as if we would ever want to conquer Russia). It is a worldview that doesn’t acknowledge God, but trusts in brute force, deception and theft, and it’s a construct set up to destroy God’s plan for Ukraine to become a nation that trusts in and acknowledges God, and that is a strong missions sending country. Some Russian politicians and journalists tried to oppose Putin, they were systematically murdered. Ukraine rose up en masse before Putin and Ukrainian oligarchs could crush them. A good friend of mine came from a Canadian Mennonite community with Ukrainian roots. Katherine the great settled Mennonites fleeing persecution in the Netherlands in Ukraine, knowing they were productive farmers. So there is a much stronger history of Evangelicalism in Ukraine than in Russia. When the Bolsheviks (communists) invaded Ukraine, his family, some of them pastors, hid in plowed furrows and haystacks. The rest were hacked to death. Canada gave them asylum, which is why Canada has the largest Ukrainian diaspora- over 2 million. Stalin, to subjugate Ukraine, cut off food supplies and took their farm produce, starving over a million Ukrainians in what Ukrainians call the holodomyr (the hunger). To me in a nutshell, Jesus has a plan for Ukraine, and as usual, the thief, murderer and destroyer is using Putin for his alternate plan for Ukraine.
Dear Brother or Sister in Christ,
Below is a video put together by a godly brother in Christ who is also a Marine veteran, that may (likely) cause you some cognitive dissonance… Isn’t dissonance what many of us first experienced when we came to the Truth in Jesus Christ? While I may not agree with every jot and tittle of this video content, in the main I believe it is very true and helpful, especially regarding destructive and threatening biolabs inside Ukraine and the implications of the same.
As always… I encourage others (and myself) to:
* Do their own research
* Connect the dots
* Come up with their own conclusions and
* Always submitting self to God’s wisdom, knowledge, understanding, insight, discretion, success, protection, direction, faithfulness, holiness, righteousness, blamelessness, instruction, and correction (Proverbs 2)
“May God lead you and I into all truth”
Respectfully submitted in Him
Brother J. Fox
https://odysee.com/@andweknow:b/feb26_FINAL:0
Ukrainian Christian Resources
https://www.ukrainechristian.com