Religious Freedom in Ukraine After 4 Years of War

And for more details on the war's impact on religious freedom in Ukraine, NTD's Chris Bobb spoke with Igor Bandura, a leading voice representing Ukrainian churches who's advocating for humanitarians and spiritual support. He also spoke to Sam Brownback, former U.S. Ambassador-at-Large for International Religious Freedom. Take a look. We're approaching an important but a horrible milestone in the Ukraine war. We've gone through years of suffering in Ukraine as military escalations continue. Tell me what you're seeing from the front line. February 24, we would mark a tragic anniversary. Four years of the war Russia started against Ukraine. And Pastor, for our viewers' context, I know that your Baptist union is the largest in Europe. Give us a view into the numbers, the amount of congregations, the pastors who are a part of the organization, and how many they serve. There are 2,300 Baptist churches that belong to our union in Ukraine. And yes, we are the largest not only in Ukraine, the largest evangelical community, but the largest evangelical community in Europe. So we lost 110 churches and plus 20 churches for the last year. When front was moving, we lost 20 more churches because people were forced to evacuate, just saving their lives. But as the other territories that are under Ukrainian control, churches became not only local churches for their members, they became like a community center for people. And we were able to plant about 100 new churches across Ukraine. But if you look to the occupied territories where Russia dominates, the situation is dramatical because there are many cases when Christians, especially pastors, were targeted, like interrogated, arrested, tortured, even killed. How real is the concern that Protestantism will cease in the east of Ukraine? If we think about this theoretically, then my answer to your question is yes. If Ukraine as a country, an independent state, would disappear, there would be a tremendous harm for the gospel ministry, for real Christian presence, not only in Ukraine, but in the entire region. Many Ukrainians are hoping that President Trump, Steve Whitkoff, and others in the administration will be able to broker a peace deal for the Ukrainian and the Russian forces. What is your hope? Number one for us, we need you, not only because you are probably the only power in the world who can help us to stop this war. The Chinese Communist Party, they seem to be quite interested in the Ukraine war and have been in talks with Putin and Russia. As soon as you, as a country, withdraw your presence from the world affairs, the same minute China, Russia, and other authoritarian regimes would step in. I think we should be standing full scale with the Ukrainians. They are carrying our war of freedom, of standing for Western civilization, more than anybody, and paying the biggest price of anybody. We should be backing them with every weapon that we have at our disposal, to provide to them at their disposal, because they are the front line of the war. Ukraine is certainly not perfect, and you see plenty of problems taking place there. They're providing a lot more religious freedom than the Russians ever dreamed of with this kind of cabal that they've got between the Russian Orthodox Church and the Russian government. You've got this axis of evil that's operational between China, Russia, Iran, North Korea, and there's others that join, come and go. But those four, they are stood up against us. There was a big meeting in Beijing last year where Xi Jinping had 20 different countries there standing on the podium with him, and you looked at it and you said, here's the axis of evil. That should send shivers down our spine, and it should be a clear warning to us. They are coming for Western civilization and for the free world. These are communist, authoritarian, totalitarian regimes. They want that type of government in place.