President Donald Trump repeatedly claimed on the campaign trail that he could end the Ukraine war within 24 hours of taking office. He failed to deliver but on Wednesday issued on social media an ultimatum to Russian president Vladimir Putin: End the war or risk “Taxes, Tariffs, and Sanctions.”
Trump’s tough stance against the Kremlin doesn’t mean Ukraine is off the hook. The president’s administration hasn’t revealed which concessions it will request from Kyiv, and Putin will undoubtedly negotiate for sovereignty over territory he has occupied and illegally annexed.
Conceding Ukrainian land to Russia comes with a host of geopolitical downsides, but a lesser-known consequence affects churches: Moscow targets non-Orthodox Christians.
Across Russian-occupied Ukraine, Kremlin troops have shuttered places of worship since the first invasion began in 2014. Religious persecution only increased after the full-scale invasion in February 2022—proof that Putin’s conquest contains a religious component, say local Protestant leaders.
Pastor Mykhailo Brytsyn was aware of the Kremlin’s tactics yet still taken by surprise when Russian soldiers flooded Melitopol, a Ukrainian city of 150,000, in March 2022. They arrested several of his friends—local clergy from non–Russian Orthodox congregations—and closed their churches. Six months later, troops stormed the sanctuary of his own congregation, Grace Church, during morning worship.
“We could not imagine that armed soldiers with their faces covered with masks, in helmets and with shields, would storm the church right during the service,” Brytsyn told CT.
The soldiers fingerprinted and photographed congregants and copied their identification documents. Then they searched the church, interrogated Brytsyn, and escorted him home to hunt for “extremist literature” proving ties to the West. Their search was in vain. Still, the Russian commander gave Brytsyn two days to leave town.
Brytsyn lives temporarily in Ukraine’s Rivne region and continues to pastor his church, now scattered throughout 16 countries. He also partners with Mission Eurasia to document atrocities committed against Christian communities in Russian-occupied territory.
In Melitopol alone, Russian forces closed all churches unaffiliated with the Moscow Patriarchate, including Greek Catholic, Roman Catholic, and Orthodox churches from the Ukrainian Patriarchate. In the broader region of Zaporizhzhia, only 15 Protestant churches remain open, compared to several hundred prior to the invasion.
This pattern has been repeated throughout Russian-occupied Ukraine. Many Christians are concerned about the consequences of a US-brokered deal that includes land concessions.
“One of our churches is in Kherson. It’s unclear whether a brokered deal would include that city or not,” Jon Eide, country director for Mission to the World, said earlier this week. The church leaders would not feel safe under Russian occupation and would likely relocate, he added.
Ukrainian Christians face another hurdle: Kremlin propaganda claiming Kyiv persecutes Orthodox Christians has seeped into conservative circles in the West, undermining Western support for Ukraine. Brytsyn visited the United States and Europe seven times during the past two years and identified Russian narratives in the questions people asked during his presentations.
In October, Ukraine’s Ministry of Defense banned churches linked to Moscow, citing propaganda dissemination. Russia’s patriarch Kirill supports the war in Ukraine, and Putin has framed his conquest as a “holy war,” orchestrated to protect Christians from immoral Western influence. The Ukrainian Orthodox Church announced its separation from the Moscow Patriarchate, but the decision hasn’t been formalized.
The restrictions placed on Kremlin-affiliated churches do not mean Ukraine is broadly targeting an entire community, Brytsyn explained. The Orthodox Church of Ukraine, a member of the recently canonized Kyiv Patriarchate, operates freely.
Moscow, on the other hand, makes no room for Protestants and non–Russian Orthodox churches. According to some reports, nearly 40 Ukrainian clergy members have died in targeted attacks since 2022.
“There can be no freedom where Putin’s troops have arrived,” Brytsyn said. “I lived in the Soviet Union for 25 years, and I know the oppression that believers were subjected to there. Now the Russians’ practice is even worse.”
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