By Gustav Krös
18/04/2025
Within a European context, Ukraine would not necessarily be the first country that comes to mind when one speaks about hotspot nations. Countries like Germany, France and the UK would probably top most people’s list, but over the last three years, Ukraine has dominated European news. The Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 confronted Europe, and the rest of the world, with the largest war on European soil since the Second World War.
This has placed Ukraine at the forefront of discussions at the European Union (EU), as well as NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization), even though Ukraine is not a member of either organisation. The rest of Europe is in a precarious position as it continues to support Ukraine to the extent that the war remains contained on Ukrainian soil, without European countries needing to get physically involved. This has placed Ukraine in a unique position, where the events happening within its borders are greatly influencing decision-making across the rest of the continent. Unfortunately, they have very little control over those events, and it is thus not a positive place of influence, as they are not benefitting from it.
On the contrary, the war has brought great devastation to the country. As in the case of most wars, accurate numbers regarding the number of people that have been killed will only be able to be verified once the war is over. At present, numbers vary considerably depending on the source one uses, but conservative numbers indicate that since the full-scale invasion of Russia started, more than 45,000 Ukrainian soldiers have been killed, and more than 12,910 civilians have died. At the same time, there have been more than 390,000 injuries of varying degrees among soldiers, although some have been injured multiple times, and there have also been more than 30,700 injuries among civilians.
In addition to this, more than 6.9 million people have fled the country, and there are more than 3.7 million people internally displaced. Besides the human cost, there is also the widespread infrastructure damage, with entire villages and towns destroyed. Then there is also the damage to the economy, and with the war still continuing, the devastation continues to grow, and it’s impossible to determine where it will end.
It all paints a very bleak picture, and it rather sounds like a hotspot nation for all the wrong reasons. However, what truly makes it a hotspot nation is the Church within the country. In the midst of the war, the Church has remained a shining light, bringing hope and comfort to those who had to flee their homes, to those who have been injured, to those who are mourning the loss of loved ones, and to everyone who is left traumatised by the events unfolding in their country.
In 2024, the estimated population of Ukraine stood at 37.9 million, with 72.63% of the people confessing to be Christian. The majority of Christians belong to the Orthodox Church, and only 3.64% are Evangelical. That equates to 1.37 million people and makes it the second-largest Evangelical body of believers from the 15 former Soviet Union states. Russia is estimated to have 2 million Evangelical believers, but due its population size, it only equates to 1.41% of the population.
With the dismantling of the Soviet Union in 1991, many missionaries went to Ukraine to support the Church and to help it grow. Over the past 34 years, the Church has grown to become a missionary sending Church itself, with Ukrainian missionaries partaking in the completion of the Great Commission outside its own borders. This is an important hallmark of maturity for any nation or people group—when God reveals to them that if you are part of His Body, then you share in the responsibility of taking the Gospel to the ends of the earth. In the midst of this missions awakening, God has thrusted a task upon the Ukrainian Church’s shoulders that has become far greater than any of them had imagined—that is, to be His Body in the midst of war.
In Acts 8:4, we read that those who had been scattered preached the word wherever they went, and so we have seen that, with the mission vision firmly having taken root within the Evangelical Church, God sent many of them as refugees into the rest of Europe, carrying the Gospel with them. This is certainly not the way the Church would have chosen to enlarge their missions footprint, but as we see from the book of Acts, conflicts and persecution in the world has been a driving force for the sharing of the Gospel since the days of the first-century Church.
With only 3.64% of the Ukrainian population being Evangelical believers, it does equate to a small number of the 6.9 million refugees currently living outside Ukraine’s borders. However, within the context of the Evangelical Church itself it provides them with a much wider scope for taking the Gospel outside their own borders than what it could ever dreamed of. God would certainly not waste any opportunity for the spreading of the Gospel, and so Ukrainian believers must make use of the opportunity presented to them to preach the word as God scatters them.
In the country, God has also worked within the midst of the war for the purification and expansion of His Kingdom. War has lifted the veil among denominations, revealing what is truly important, and has led many churches to reach out across denominational lines—something that could never have been imagined before the war. Churches are collaborating in efforts to help people, and interdenominational prayer meetings are growing. God is thus using the pressures of war to purify and mature His Church within Ukraine.
This is also leading to growth within the Church, as we have seen with other wars around the world. War has a tendency to strip away everything that people find their security in. Whether it is their possessions, position in society or a false religion, war shows a person that none of those things can truly save them. It thus leaves people hopeless, but it also opens their hearts to an alternative source of hope and security. This is precisely why the Church needs to be present in the midst of war—to introduce people to the only true source of hope when they need it most—and this is what we have seen in the Ukrainian Church.
The Church has remained faithful throughout the war, even within the occupied territories and on the conflict line. The Church continues to be salt and light in the darkest of days. They are there to offer help to those who have become internally displaced, and they are there to comfort those in mourning. In the midst of war, the Church is growing, and during Sunday services, churches are full to capacity with people finding their strength and hope in Jesus Christ.
Within the context of the world today, God has chosen the Ukrainian Church to be an example to the global Church, but more specifically the Western Church. Through the war in the Ukraine, God has shown Western nations that they shouldn’t think they are exempt from war. In Matthew 24:6-7, Jesus tells us, “You will hear of wars and rumors of wars, but see to it that you are not alarmed. Such things must happen, but the end is still to come. Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom.”
Wars are thus inevitable, and there are always multiple wars raging somewhere in the world, but most of those wars are far removed from the context of Western nations. God has thus thrusted experience unto the Ukrainian Church—and with that, maturity that cannot be bought or taught. Unless one has gone through war, the Church in Western nations do not have this experience, and therefore lacks the maturity that flows from it. If God has allowed the Ukrainian Church to garner this experience and gain this maturity, then He will surely not waste it.
Within the physical realm, Ukraine might appear to be a hotspot nation purely because of the war being fought on its soil, but within the Spiritual realm, it is a hotspot nation because God is growing a Church that will fulfill a leading role within His Body in years to come.
At this moment in time, however, they are in desperate need of the global body of Christ to remain standing alongside them and keep their hands raised, as Aaron and Hur did for Moses in Exodus 17:12. The global Church certainly has a responsibility to support the Church in Ukraine, but they are also investing in their own future by doing so. By supporting them now with our prayers and finances, we will reap the reward in return—when they bless us with the lessons and experience they have garnered through the war.
Please join us in prayer:
- For the Church in Ukraine to be strengthened and to remain focused on the Kingdom of God.
- For everyone in Ukraine who is suffering, mourning, and traumatised, that they will find their comfort in Jesus Christ.
- For the Global Church to not grow weary in supporting the Church in Ukraine.
- For those in authority, that God will lead them in their decision-making, and that the desire for peace will grow in their hearts.
- For the Church in Ukraine to persevere and be an example to the Global body of Christ.
Sources:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_Ukraine
https://joshuaproject.net/countries/UP
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Christianity_in_Ukraine
https://www.unrefugees.org/emergencies/ukraine/
https://kyivindependent.com/over-45-000-ukrainian-soldiers-killed-since-start-of-war-zelensky-says/
