Email & Social Media Only: Ministry/War Update for 11.3.22
Dear Friends and Partners,
Here is our monthly war update – our regular prayer letter will be released in a few weeks. After eight months of this raging war, there seems to be no end in sight. The vast majority of fighting are in the eastern and southern portions of Ukraine. On October 24th, Russia pronounced that the war is moving towards an uncontrollable escalation. This may be true because there has been serious damage to both Ukraine and Russian forces and there seems to be an escalation of rhetoric for the use of tactical nuclear bombs. NATO seems to be sending more and more military equipment to Ukraine and also bolstering their border areas. It was also reported that Russia has sent 82,000 fresh troops to Ukraine.
On October 7th, the Kersch bridge (which links Russian to Crimea), had a serious explosion that caused much damage and consequently, has limited the amount of resources Russia can pour into the Ukrainian conflict. This past week, Ukraine was also able to damage Russia’s Black Sea flag ship, named the Admiral Makarov.
In retaliation to both of those events, Russia had unleashed a massive number of missiles across Ukraine. It is reported that the Russian military has intentionally targeted and destroyed many areas of infrastructure that help the civilian population. One report stated that 40% of Ukraine was without electricity. There are additional reports that the Russian’s have targeted natural gas and water facilities too.
Our city of Kharkiv is one of the twenty cities targeted by these attacks. When I spoke to our ministry partners, they shared that electricity, natural gas, and water are intermittent at best. One of our ministry partners who feeds over a thousand people per day through their makeshift soup kitchen updated me that since October 20th they no longer have the capability to serve warm meals to the hungry. I am hearing that the availability of electricity, water, and natural gas mostly depends on what area of the city or region of Kharkiv which you live. Clearly, many of the villages have nothing – no water, heat, or electricity. In Kharkiv, the subway system was knocked out of commission too.
The good news is that UN was able to get food boxes to our area and most of our ministry partners are working feverishly to get these resources to the recently freed towns and villages in our area. Our partners continue to share the love of Christ, give a sermon, sing songs, hand out biblical literature and pass out food packets or boxes.
According to the Kyiv Post, Oleh Snyhubov, who is the governor and head of the Kharkiv Regional Military Administration recently reported that almost 1,300 civilians in our Kharkiv area have been killed since the beginning of the war - unfortunately, 56 children have lost their lives. An additional 2,348 civilians have been injured.
The Kyiv Independent spoke with Serhii Bolvinov, the state of Kharkiv’s chief investigator on Oct. 6, and he stated that his team discovered 22 locations that Russians used to torture people, including the towns of Vovchansk, Kupiansk, Velykyi Burluk, and Izium (all within our region). The Kyiv Post also reported that there were at least 447 bodies exhumed and only 22 were military personnel, the remainder of those tortured and killed were civilians.
Please continue to pray for our friends, family and ministry partners in Ukraine. We also learned last week that our Ukrainian friends who live a couple blocks away from us lost a family member who was serving in the Ukrainian military. They are grieving, as you can imagine, so please pray for Sergei and Yulya. Please also pray that our ministry too.
Here is our link if you would like to financially support our ministry efforts in and around Kharkiv, Ukraine orphans in Romania, and refugees Romania, Germany, England, Spain and Ireland:
slavicchristian.org/donate
Our prayer requests:
1) Please pray for the war to end and cooler heads will prevail;
2) Please pray that people will not starve and freeze in the months ahead, including children & senior citizens;
3) Pray for our ministry partner’s safety as they travel and distribute food and supplies;
4) Pray we can raise an additional funding for this and next budget year;
5) Pray that the spiritual revival will continue.
Thank you again for your prayers and support; God bless you!
Ron