From: Jamie Peipon (missions pastor at First Presbyterian Church, Jackson, MS) – The picture above is an image from the first moments of the evil, barbaric full-scale invasion of Ukraine that began exactly 2 years ago. This image has been seared in my mind for every one of the last 721 days. This Ukrainian border guard held on and did not abandon his post, despite the fact that an entire mechanized column was coming straight at him. He died on this day two years ago.
There have been narratives circulating that everything is just fine in Russia. It isn’t. In the past two years, they’ve lost upwards of 300,000 troops in Ukraine. They’ve barely moved the front lines in several small towns… which they could only do by literally wiping those towns from the face of the earth and now give them no value. They brought NATO to their borders (Finland). They had an attempted coup. They’ve had countless murders of influential military officials (the leader of the aforementioned coup) or political figures (political prisoner Alexei Navalny). Videos of police aggressively arresting people including young women for the heinous crime of placing flowers at monuments in honor of Navalny have circulated widely. In addition, countless oligarchs have mysteriously “fallen out of windows.” They’ve suffered the loss of about one third of their Black Sea fleet (to a country without a navy) resulting in the loss of control of the grain corridors through the Black Sea. Just this week they’ve had about half a billion dollars’ worth of aircraft shot out of the sky. Beyond all of that, the mask of Russian culture has been largely lifted and things are now common knowledge like, for example, that 2/3rds of homes outside of major Russian cities don’t even have basic indoor plumbing.
Putin continues to say that the very existence of Ukraine and Ukrainians is dangerous to Russia. But Ukraine was no threat to Russia in 1991 when they agreed to international borders. Ukraine was surely not a threat in 1994 when Ukraine gave up all nuclear weapons in exchange for guarantees that the cosigners (Russia along with the US, and UK) would not attack. They still weren’t a threat in 2014 when Crimea and the eastern regions of Ukraine were invaded. And Ukraine was no threat to Russia in 2022 when they launched their full-scale invasion. Today, Ukraine is STILL no threat to Russia. Yes, Ukraine is very dangerous for invading Russians, but no danger at all to those who go home.
Unbelievably, Putin also continues to claim that Ukraine is a nazi state. This is absurd. Ukraine’s lawfully-elected president is Jewish. At the same time, he says that World War 2 began when Germany was “forced” to invade Poland by … checks notes … Poland. And he says that to justify his own invasion of Ukraine. The similarities between Germany in 1939 and Russia in 2022 are so obvious that even Putin can’t resist making the comparison.
There are pages more that could be written… but suffice it to say, two years later, Ukraine still stands. I think that is a miracle. What Russia called a 3-day military operation has now become a 3-year war. It is exhausting. It is frustrating. It is infuriating. But we continue to pray. We continue to help. We continue to go.
Слава Україні. Героям слава.
“Deliver me, O LORD, from evil men;
preserve me from violent men,
who plan evil things in their heart
and stir up wars continually.”
Voice of Ukraine 