By Isolde Doubell
28/08/2025
On Sunday, 24 August, Ukraine celebrated Independence Day, marking its declaration of independence from the Soviet Union in 1991. In his address to the nation, President Volodymyr Zelensky said Ukraine would continue to fight for its freedom “while its calls for peace are not heard.” He added, “We need a just peace, a peace where our future will be decided only by us.” He added that Ukraine is not a victim; it is a fighter, saying: “Ukraine has not yet won, but it has certainly not lost.”
All eyes have been on Ukraine during the past two weeks, with all the diplomacy surrounding the meetings of the US President Donald Trump with President Vladimir Putin in Alaska, and President Zelensky in Washington, D.C. President Trump has made many promises during his presidential campaign to bring peace to Ukraine but has shown frustration with the two leaders’ lack of progress in setting up peace talks. According to a pastor friend of INcontext in Kyiv, the Ukrainian people were disappointed by the way President Putin was honoured during this summit. Also, President Trump, who supported a ceasefire before the meeting, later agreed with President Putin to go straight to a peace settlement and not via a ceasefire, as Ukraine and its European allies had been demanding. Sanctions against Russia were also lifted. When he met with President Zelensky and six EU representatives a few days later at the White House, President Trump promised security guarantees for Ukraine if there was a peace deal, but the details were vague, and he changed his mind on a trilateral peace summit, encouraging the leaders to meet alone instead.
The Word of God urges us as Christians to trust God rather than man. Psalm 118:8-9 says, “It is better to take refuge in the Lord than to trust in man. It is better to take refuge in the Lord than to trust in princes.” While the world is looking to President Trump and the United States to fix all manner of problems, there is only One who can bring inner and outer peace, who can turn darkness to light and change people’s hearts. People have different agendas, and politics and power lead to unreliable and self-centred motives.
We as the Church must pray and stand with our brothers and sisters in Ukraine during this very challenging and drawn-out war, so that they may not lose heart and remain anchored in God. The current situation does not suggest that a peace agreement will happen soon. Russia launched the biggest strike on Ukraine since July just days after the meetings. The strike was, like many others, not aimed at military targets but at crucial infrastructure, businesses, and civilian homes. President Zelensky condemned Moscow for launching the new strike, saying “as if nothing had changed at all. As if there were no efforts by the world to stop this war. A response is needed.” He added, “So far, there has been no signal from Moscow that they are really going to engage in meaningful negotiations and end this war. Pressure is needed. Strong sanctions, strong tariffs.” Russia’s Foreign Minister, Sergei Lavrov, said President Putin was ready to meet Ukraine’s leader “when the agenda is ready for a summit, and this agenda is not ready at all.” He accused President Zelensky of saying “no to everything.”
Russia currently controls around a fifth of Ukrainian territory, including the Crimean peninsula, which it annexed in 2014. Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. According to analysts, the war – the deadliest in Europe since the Second World War – has killed or wounded well over a million people on both sides, although the figure may be higher since neither side reveals statistics. Russia wants full control of the Donbas, the area to the east where most of the fighting occurs, to be included in any settlement to end the war. The Donbas comprises Luhansk, currently 99% occupied by Russia, and Donetsk, 76% occupied (according to the map President Zelensky had at the White House). Ukraine also has to give up any hope of joining NATO or using NATO military as security guarantees. President Zelensky has stated emphatically that they are unwilling to give the Donbas to Russia. Not only is it a strategic buffer area between Ukraine and Russia, it has mineral resources, excellent farmland, and the much fought-over port city of Mariupol. Around thirty countries, the so-called “coalition of the willing”, are supporting Ukraine and are prepared to help defend a peace deal once one is reached.
A chaplain friend of INcontext in Ukraine says: “I do not think a meeting between Ukraine and Russia is likely to happen soon because President Putin does not want to end the war. There is a long history between Ukraine and Russia and throughout this history Ukraine has seen the violation of all preliminary agreements. Russia wants to wipe everything related to Ukrainian statehood off the face of the earth.”
He adds that this war is just as much a spiritual war as it is a physical one. “In the areas that Russia has invaded, evangelical churches and Ukrainian Orthodox Churches are now illegal. The only church allowed is the Russian Orthodox Church.” He says relationships with Russian Christians before the war have now been severed by the Russians. “Those who are not supporting the war have had to emigrate or they keep quiet to protect their lives, since there are now criminal cases against people opposing the war.”
The chaplain friend continues, “But God gives us grace to go through difficulties, and He will not allow us to go through things we will not be able to bear. As Christians, we belong to the Kingdom of God before we belong to any other country. I strongly believe we are all in God’s hands and that we are also His instruments. My wife recently completed a special training programme on how to help people traumatised by war. A week later, she already had an opportunity to train chaplains with the information she received. The Ukrainian people are exhausted. Those living in conflict areas cannot sleep peacefully, and most suffer economically. The soldiers are extremely traumatised and require a huge amount of help. Basically, people feel neglected and alone. We realise that this is a historical moment for the Church to be able to make an impact for the Kingdom of Heaven.”
Please join us in prayer:
- For God to do a miracle and bring a ceasefire and peace to Ukraine.
- That God will strengthen and protect His Church, equipping them supernaturally and keeping them focused so that they can be instruments of His healing, life, and hope in these very challenging times.
- For the people of Ukraine to experience the King of kings and Lord of lords as their source of hope and peace, and to keep their eyes on Him and not on worldly leaders who can disappoint.
