Prelates detail humanitarian costs of war in Ukraine
February 14, 2024
“What’s happening now in Ukraine is genocide,” Major Archbishop Sviatoslav Shevchuk said at February 14 press conference organized by the international Catholic charity Aid to the Church in Need (ACN).
The Major Archbishop of the Ukrainian Catholic Church reported that in the Russian military offensive, “People are killed in Ukraine because they are Ukrainians.” He argued that the goal of Russian policy is to eliminate the Ukrainian identity.
Archbishop Shevchuk—along with Archbishop Visvaldas Kulbokas, the apostolic nuncio in Ukraine—spoke about the humanitarian costs of the war, including the devastating effects on family life as well as the steadily increasing toll of battle casualties. Both prelates emphasized the psychological damage done by the “invisible war,” and the “war trauma” that has darkened the prospects of the Ukrainian people.
Family life throughout Ukraine is enduring unprecedented strains, Archbishop Shevchuk said, with thousands of families mourning the losses of loved ones, while another 35,000 people remain classified as “missing.” More than 200,000 people who have been seriously injured during the war are being cared for at home by relatives, since health-care institutions are overwhelmed.
Food is in short supply in many parts of Ukraine, Archbishop Kulbokas reported, and while larger relief organizations like ACN continue to provide aid, smaller humanitarian groups have been forced to close their operations. Schools that were shuttered during the Covid lockdown have remained closed because of the war, so that in some areas schools have now been closed continually for four years.
The ACN press conference was held to mark a decade of war in Ukraine—a reference to the fighting that has continued since Russian troops seized control of the Crimean region. In the area now controlled by Russia, Shevchuk said, there are no Catholic priests. (Two priests of the Ukrainian Catholic Church were taken into custody by Russian troops; their current whereabouts are unknown.) When Catholics continued to gather on Sunday for prayer services without a priest, Russian officials locked up the church building.
Asked whether the Eastern Catholic community in Ukraine might survive as an “underground” Church, as it did during the Soviet era, Major Archbishop Shevchuk answered: “We don’t know for sure.” He said that private worship is now even more difficult because Russian authorities control every aspect of life in the occupied territories, so that there is “not any more private space.”
Correction: An early version of this report inaccurately identified Major Archbishop Shevchuk as a cardinal.
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Posted by: Randal Mandock -
Feb. 14, 2024 1:16 PM ET USA
It all could have been avoided had the U.S. not prevented the March 2022 peace deal from taking place. And the need for a peace deal could have been avoided had the U.S. not fostered the coup that removed the legitimately-elected government in 2014. Of course, recent history is only part of the story. The real threat is ongoing and dates back to the promises made in 1991 and then reneged by the West to not move NATO "one inch" eastward of Berlin. Beyond military threats are the cultural threats.
