Ira (Kyiv)
When the full-scale war just started, we wanted to hope it would be over in a few weeks. Then we were praying it would be over by Easter. Now, we pray it will be over by the end of summer, but the time keeps stretching. According to the US Intelligence expectations, Russia is going to prolong the war and switch to a crawl in order to exhaust Ukraine and the rest of the world. Putin thinks that by winter, people will get tired of hearing about the war, and they will be annoyed with the inconvenience of the war (higher prices, food shortage, immigration crisis – all of this will impact the world, not just Ukraine). He hopes to get everything he wants, adding more nuclear war threats.
Please, pray for the world not to give up on Ukraine. If you look at the map, you will see how many European countries immediately depend on the outcome of the war on Ukraine. If Russia completely occupies the South of Ukraine, they will have a clear passage to “Transnistria,” the part of Moldova under Russian occupation since 1992, and a doorway to further occupation of Moldova. If Russia gets to the western border of Ukraine, it will not stop there. The Soviet Union occupied part of Poland in 1939, and Russia has been hinting at getting revenge on Poland for helping Ukraine. Since Belarus is de-facto a tool in the hands of Russia and its territory is used for attacks on Ukraine, it is only a matter of time until its territory is used to facilitate invasion in Lithuania. Latvia and Estonia already share a border with Russia – they were under Soviet occupation until the 1990s, and Russia has already made statements about the “poor treatment of Russian-speaking people there.”
As you can see, WWIII is only a matter of time if this is not stopped soon. Please, pray for deliverance and divine intervention.
Please, keep praying for Mariupol. Today, Azovstal suffered 34 air raids. It is bombed and shelled using all possible weapons from the land, sea, and air. There are over 1,000 Ukrainian defenders there, and hundreds of them are wounded without access to the medical care they need. May God’s mercy and power be with them.
Thank you for your prayers,
Al Akimoff and the Slavic Ministries Team
