Voice of Ukraine

From Ira Kapitonova in Kyiv (Day 526):

From the heavens you uttered judgment;
the earth feared and was still,
when God arose to establish judgment,
to save all the humble of the earth.
Psalm 76:8‭-‬9

There is a word in Ukrainian that can be translated as “grievous, racked with pain.” This word comes to mind when I think about the Kherson region. Perhaps that’s because I feel some sort of nostalgia as my dad’s family comes from there. Or maybe that’s because half of this region was liberated last fall, and the other half is still in occupation. Or it could be because the liberated part now is experiencing the torture of daily shellings.

In the past 24 hours, they shelled public transportation during the rush hour, the firefighters while they were trying to put out the fire in a temple in downtown Kherson, a shopping mall, and a hospital. All these were separate attacks throughout the day.

In addition, a recent report says that half of Ukrainians held in Russian detention centers in Kherson were subjected to widespread torture, including sexual violence. The report reveals analyzed 320 cases of detention in Kherson across more than 35 detention centers. Of those victims, at least 43% explicitly mentioned practices of torture, citing sexual violence on both male and female prisoners. Suffocation, waterboarding, severe beatings, and threats of rape were other techniques commonly used against detained Ukrainians. The disturbing thing is that, based on the analyzed trends, the longer the occupation was, the more severe and the more common crimes were, and Ukrainian advances on the frontline also intensified the use of torture. The full report is available here https://t.ly/HdMWv

I know that if I feel excruciating emotional pain from just reading this news, how much more heartbreaking it must be to God to see His creation tortured and destroyed by His creation that allowed wickedness to take over their hearts. But one day, justice will be restored.