Today, We Received a Decision – the U.S. Assistance, Which Will Be Felt by Both the Warriors on the Frontline, and the Cities and Villages Suffering from Russian Terror – Address by the President

20 April 2024 – 21:30

Dear Ukrainians!

From early morning today, various regions of our country have been experiencing air alerts and Russian strikes. From the east to the south… Sumy, Chernihiv, Kharkiv, Dnipropetrovsk regions, Kherson and the region, Odesa, Mykolaiv, Zaporizhzhia and Donetsk regions. Missiles, drone strikes, artillery. There is a lot of destruction — houses, port infrastructure, and energy facilities. There are casualties and, unfortunately, fatalities. My condolences to their families and loved ones. Throughout the day, our air defense system was in action, there were responses to Russian strikes, the rescuers of the State Emergency Service of Ukraine, and all the services performed their duties.

But this day is still a little different. Today, we received the long-awaited decision: the American support package we’ve been fighting for so hard. And it is a very significant package that will be felt by both our warriors on the frontline and our cities and villages suffering from Russian terror. The U.S. House of Representatives voted today.

I thank everyone who supported our package – this is a life-saving decision. I am grateful personally to Speaker Mike Johnson, to all American hearts who, like us in Ukraine, feel that Russian evil definitely should not prevail. I hope that the package will be considered in the U.S. Senate and submitted to President Biden’s desk quickly enough.

We appreciate every manifestation of support for our state and independence, for our people, and for our lives that Russia wants to bury in ruins. America has shown its leadership from the very first days of this war. And this kind of American leadership is crucial for the maintenance of an international order in the world based on rules and predictability of life for all nations. We will certainly use American support to strengthen both our nations and bring a just end to this war closer – a war that Putin must lose.

And I thank the entire Ukrainian team, everyone who works and does everything to bring this outcome closer. I thank all the representatives of our state, all our diplomats who are working to increase the support for Ukraine, all the representatives of the public sector, every volunteer, all the friends of Ukraine. I am grateful to my team. The world unites for Ukraine when Ukrainians unite for independence.

And today I would like to honor those of our people who have shown their best in the aftermath of the Russian strikes over the week – helping people, protecting lives. These are the employees of the State Emergency Service of Ukraine, our medical workers, police officers. Everyone who works on the scene after the hits. Everyone who rescues people from under the rubble, stops fires, and saves the injured. Thank you all!

I would like to mention some of them in particular… Dnipro: Denys Mikheyev, Artem Serha, Dmytro Nikolayenko – these guys are from the State Emergency Service. Vitaliy Arkhypov – an emergency doctor in the Dnipro region, Yevhen Holitsyn – an emergency feldsher. I would also like to mention the police officers: Oleksiy Bondarenko and Vitaliy Andriyanov. Thank you! Karyna Kolisnychenko – a dog handler from the Pavlohrad search and rescue unit. Thank you for every life saved.

Odesa, SES: Yuriy Sukhorukov, Vitaliy Telehus and Artem Kopechynskyi. Thank you, guys!

Chernihiv: Artem Lysenko – a firefighter, Vadym Avramenko and Maksym Zhylko – also employees of the SES in the region, as well as police officers Andriy Vovk and Bohdan Tkachuk. Thank you! I am also grateful to Natalia Nosenok, a nurse who really cares about people and helps them.

I am grateful to everyone who cares about Ukrainians, about life in our country, about their city, their community, about our entire country! And I am especially thankful to each of our warriors. To all those who destroy the Russian occupier, who hold the frontline and thus preserve Ukraine on the world map. We are doing everything to ensure that our warriors have as many opportunities as possible so that this war ends as soon as possible on our terms, Ukrainian terms.

Glory to Ukraine!

I am grateful to the United States House of Representatives, both parties, and personally Speaker Mike Johnson for the decision that keeps history on the right track.

Democracy and freedom will always have global significance and will never fail as long as America helps to…

— Volodymyr Zelenskyy / Володимир Зеленський (@ZelenskyyUa) April 20, 2024

I am grateful to the United States House of Representatives, both parties, and personally Speaker Mike Johnson for the decision that keeps history on the right track.

Democracy and freedom will always have global significance and will never fail as long as America helps to protect it. The vital U.S. aid bill passed today by the House will keep the war from expanding, save thousands and thousands of lives, and help both of our nations to become stronger.

Just peace and security can only be attained through strength.

We hope that bills will be supported in the Senate and sent to President Biden’s desk. Thank you, America!

Hope is not a strategy!

Lithuania:

🇱🇹🇺🇦Today, another shipment of Lithuanian military aid reached Ukraine. We delivered a disassembled light attack aircraft L-39ZA "Albatros" to the Ukrainian Armed Forces. L-39ZA "Albatros" was used in @LTU_Army to train fighter control officers, ensuring pilots' combat readiness. pic.twitter.com/sS3STsu8N2

— Lithuanian MOD 🇱🇹 (@Lithuanian_MoD) April 20, 2024

I’m not sure what the Ukrainians are going to do with just one of these, but every little bit helps.

Our weapons of Victory!

📹: @United24media pic.twitter.com/DOM22rYJkV

— Defense of Ukraine (@DefenceU) April 20, 2024

Head of Ukrainian Defense Intelligence Kyrylo Budanov shared some details about shooting down a Russian strategic bomber at a distance of 300 kilometers.

It was a lengthy and carefully prepared operation.

📹: BBC News Ukrainian https://t.co/pd3SAk1JPK pic.twitter.com/73RGOxP5Qi

— Anton Gerashchenko (@Gerashchenko_en) April 19, 2024

Novomykhailivka:

Repelling Russian attack on the Novomykhailivka front. Video by the Shadow air reconnaissance unit. https://t.co/LUTJDTWDMe pic.twitter.com/fHqsbENk9P

— Special Kherson Cat 🐈🇺🇦 (@bayraktar_1love) April 20, 2024

Bakhmut:

https://twitter.com/bayraktar_1love/status/1781605192762335512

Russian occupied areas of Ukraine:

https://twitter.com/peterpomeranzev/status/1781708508389417376

Peter Pomerantsev in Time:

After they beat Azat Azatyan so bad blood came out of his ears; after they sent electric shocks up his genitals; after they wacked him with pipes and truncheons, the Russians began to interrogate him about his faith. “When did you become a Baptist? When did you become an American spy?” Azat tried to explain that in Ukraine there was freedom of religion, you could just choose your faith. But his torturers saw the world the same way as their predecessors at the KGB did: an American church is just a front for the American state.

Azat was dragged back to the makeshift cell in the occupied city of Berdiansk, in southern Ukraine, where he was held with six others in a cellar that had a bucket for a toilet and hard mattresses on the floor. The other inmates wondered how he could be religious when the punishments meted out to him were so much worse than to them. Azat answered he felt God was always with him. He prayed for the other inmates to be spared. When the torturers returned they left the others alone but told him to come with them: “This time we will kill you.”

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is accompanied with a strategic effort to repress, control, and crush religious groups outside of the Kremlin controlled Moscow Patriarchate, the Russian Orthodox Church. There are over thirty cases of religious clergy killed and kidnapped. 109 known cases of interrogations, forced expulsions, imprisonments, arrests. 600 houses of worship destroyed. And these are just the confirmed numbers, with the real ones in information blackout of the occupied territories will much likely be higher.

Evangelicals are targeted by the Russians disproportionally, and Azat’s story is typical for Russia’s systemic persecution of Protestants in occupied Ukraine. Protestants were the victims of 34 percent of the reported persecution events, and 48 percent in the Zaporizhzhia region where Azat was held. Baptists made up 13 percent of victims – the largest single group after Ukrainian Orthodox. Under Russian control 400 Baptist congregations have been lost, 17% of the total in Ukraine.

There’s a reason for this. Protestants flourished in the democratic decades since the end of the U.S.S.R. Baptists are the third largest denomination in Ukraine. The mayor of Kyiv between 2006-2012 was an evangelical. And for the Russian occupiers they are perceived as agents of America.

Petro Dudnyk, Pastor of the Good News Church, explains that the occupying forces “thought and spoke like this: you are the American faith, the Americans are our enemies, the enemies must be destroyed.” Inside Russia Jehovah’s Witnesses are banned, as is missionary work for Mormons. Evangelical groups are constrained by laws banning missionary activity and labelling some groups as “undesirable organizations.” The U.S. Congress Commission on International Religious Freedom considers Russia as one of the world’s “worst violators” of religious freedom, on par with Iran and Pakistan.

What this persecution highlights is that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is more than just the latest iteration of the Kremlin’s centuries old attempt to crush Ukraine’s freedom. It is also part of the Kremlin’s larger war against America. By hurting those who practice an “American” religion the Kremlin can claim it is striking against American power—while picking on the powerless.

“Your church has no right to exist, as it has connections with America and other Western countries,” Russian authorities told the deacon of the Pentecostal church in Nova Kakhovka, Oleksandr Prokopchuk. They arrested him and his 19-year-old son. Both were later found dead in a forest. In occupied Sloviansk four members of the Evangelical Church of the Transformation were accused of being American spies because some U.S. dollars were found in their pockets. They were subsequently shot and killed.

But it’s not just individual clergy Russian forces go after, sometimes it’s whole congregations. As soon as Russia take over a city armed men turn up during prayers. The investigative news outlet, The Counter-Offensive, has reported on the fate of an Adventist congregation in Donetsk, where, the pastor explains, “every week or two there were searches. People would come with machine guns. Sometimes a tank would come. …they said, ‘You are Americans, this is an American church, this is not [a Russian] church. We were treated like dogs. They beat us. Some were killed. Some disappeared.”

When Russian occupying forces shut down the Melitopol Christian Church, they used sledge hammers to break into the building. Members were interrogated as to whether the church was hiding any Americans. The house of worship was expropriated and given to a Russian Ministry. Its fifty foot cross was chopped down. Click here for video.

Sometimes the Russians also try to “cure” protestants. Viktor Cherniiavskyi, was held for 25 days, beaten with a baseball bat and given electro-shocks. A Russian Orthodox priest was present in this process, and tried to cast demons out of him for being an evangelical Christian. The torturers used a taser to help the exorcism along.

The way the priest and the torturer worked together is emblematic of the interconnection between the Russian state and the Russian Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate. The Moscow Patriarch, Kirill, who was reportedly a KGB agent in the 1970s, has vociferously supported the invasion of Ukraine, openly backs the destruction of Ukraine’s sovereignty and promises Russian soldiers their sins will be washed away. When Russian forces accuse evangelicals of being agents of the U.S. they are projecting how the Moscow patriarchate aids and abets Putin. The tradition of priests working for spy agencies continues with Orthodox priests in Ukraine who report to the Moscow Patriarch have also been found guilty of reporting directly to the Russian security services.

Only 4% of Ukrainians Patriarch remain faithful to Kirill’s Moscow Patriarchate—the vast majority have moved to the Orthodox Church under the Kyiv Patriarchate.  Moreover 85% of Ukrainians think that the Moscow branch of the Orthodox Church is a security threat. The Ukrainian Parliament is considering a bill that would prohibit religious organisations that are controlled from a country waging armed aggression against Ukraine. Steven Moore, a former Republican strategist who now runs a center documenting religious crimes in Ukraine, compares the approach to the struggle to legislate against TikTok in the US. According to Moore “Congress wants to ban TikTok unless it gets new ownership. The parliament of Ukraine has drafted a bill to close individual churches affiliated with Russia unless they find ‘new ownership’ and renounce the Russian affiliation.”

But such nuance is lost on some lawmakers and media in America, such as Marjorie Taylor Greene and Tucker Carlson, who accuse the Ukrainian government of attacking religious freedom. It’s a twisted situation thinks Moore: while Russia literally murders and tortures Protestants, Ukraine is attacked for trying to find a balance between religious freedom and security.

When I asked Azat about Americans who think Russia a bastion of Christianity while Ukraine persecutes Christians he shook his head in bemusement: “The Russians have come here to kill and oppress—that is against God’s law, let alone human law.”

Smolensk, Russia:

https://twitter.com/bayraktar_1love/status/1781580042255938004

https://twitter.com/maria_avdv/status/1781569004332634555

That’s enough for tonight.

Your daily Patron!

https://twitter.com/PatronDsns/status/1781728102403412470

https://twitter.com/PatronDsns/status/1781745687438209030