Shortly after the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February of 2022, Pastor Dmitry of the Word of Life Church in Melitopol, a city in southeastern Ukraine, woke up to Russian military SUVs parked outside his house. Soldiers rushed in and seized his computers, interrogated his family, and arrested him. They accused him of being a spy and held him for eight days. They threatened to kill him. He was later released, but his plight is an unfortunately common one in the Russian-controlled areas of Ukraine.
According to the Institute for Religious Freedom, a Ukrainian watchdog group, 640 religious sites in Ukraine, most of them Ukrainian Orthodox or Protestant, have been damaged by Russian attacks. Evangelical pastors have been jailed, beaten, and sometimes killed by Russian forces. Russia has become one of the hardest places to be an Evangelical Christian, according to the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom. Anti-terror laws prevent preachers from preaching the Christian gospel, and the government’s collusion with the Russian Orthodox Church restricts worship. That has been exported to the territories Russia has seized since 2022.
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