WASHINGTON -- Over the first two years of Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine, waves of Ukrainian officials, war veterans, civil society leaders, and business representatives have come to Washington to press the case for more American support, warning a Russian victory would pose a major threat to Western democracy and national security.
Since the start of the year, another segment of Ukrainian society has been making its presence felt in the U.S. capital: evangelical Protestant leaders.
They are sounding a separate alarm bell, saying religious freedom and minority faith groups are under threat in Russian-occupied territory in Ukraine. And they are going beyond Washington to deliver that message directly to evangelical voters across the United States -- a key constituency in the presidential election this November.
While some Ukrainian evangelical leaders had come to Washington in the first two years since the invasion in February 2022, it is now a more concerted effort. It follows signs of waning support for Ukraine among Republican voters, many of whom identify as evangelicals, and following the election in October of Republican Mike Johnson as speaker of the House of Representatives, the third most powerful position in the United States.
Johnson is a Southern Baptist who served as trustee of the Southern Baptist Convention's Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission from 2004-2012.
Many Republican voters want lawmakers to focus on what they say are problems at home, like high inflation and mass migration at the southern border. And when it comes to Ukraine, criticism of the government's treatment of a branch of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church long linked to Russia has resonated with some evangelicals, while some find Russian President Vladimir Putin's claim to be a champion of "traditional values'' appealing.
For six months, from October to April, conservative House Republicans blocked the passage of a $61 billion package of mostly military aid for Ukraine, badly hurting its defense against the Russian invasion.
As Ukrainians urged U.S. lawmakers to pass the stalled aid bill, they heard a common response: "'My voters are giving me pushback,'" said Daniel Vajdich, president of Yorktown Solutions, which lobbies for Ukraine. It sunk in, he said.
"For many months, Ukrainians were hearing from well-intentioned lawmakers that they wanted to back the aid bill but were facing questions from voters whenever they traveled back to their district," Vajdich said. "Some Ukrainians really took note of that and said, 'We have to get to the constituents.'"
'The Moral Case'
In late February, as Russian forces made their biggest advances in a year and the aid package languished in Congress, Kyiv Global Outreach, a nonprofit organization linked to the Kyiv School of Economics, hired DCI Group, a Washington-based lobbying firm with strong ties to the Republican Party.
For $3.6 million, DCI agreed to help with media and public affairs through the end of 2024, according to foreign agent registration documents filed with the U.S. Justice Department.
DCI, in turn, subcontracted some work to Gary Marx, a Republican strategist and prominent evangelical who has advised presidential campaigns. In a 2016 article, the National Review described Marx as "deeply respected in the social-conservative community."
Kyiv Global Outreach, with help from lobbyists, has brought over three groups of Ukrainian evangelical leaders to the United States since March, publicized stories of Russian atrocities against Ukrainian evangelicals in leading U.S.-based Christian media, and had U.S. evangelical leaders urge Johnson to pass aid. They plan to bring over three more groups this year.
Similar efforts to reach Evangelicals have been made by Razom, an advocacy group, and Ukraine Freedom Project, an NGO run by two former Republican House staff members. The latter set up a website in November chronicling the alleged persecution of Ukrainian Christians by Russians.
Johnson met with Ukrainian evangelical leaders including Pavlo Unhuryan, a former lawmaker with longstanding Congressional ties, on January 31, a day before the annual National Prayer Breakfast in Washington. Unhuryan and Serhiy Gaydarzhi, a Baptist from Odesa, met with Johnson on April 17, the day he brought the bill to the floor. It quickly passed the House and Senate and was signed by Biden on April 24.
Gaydarzhi's wife, Anna, and their 6-month-old son, Timofiy, were killed on March 2 when a drone fired by Russia slammed into their Odesa apartment building, causing part of it to collapse. An image showing their lifeless hands sticking out from under a bloodied blanket in the rubble went viral.
In risking his position by bringing the bill to the floor, Johnson was reportedly influenced in part by the accounts of Ukrainian Protestants.
"Politically this was really, really tough but Johnson did it anyway for several reasons, one of them being the moral case that was made, and he understood it as a genuine believer," said Vajdich, a former Republican aide on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
The moral angle "will be a factor moving forward" as well, he said.
While the $61 billion package should get Ukraine through early next year, some experts doubt another large one can get through Congress later in 2025 with many Republicans lawmakers opposed.
Former President Donald Trump, the presumptive Republican Party nominee to face President Joe Biden in the November 5 election, has expressed reservations about aid to Ukraine.
White evangelicals and born-again Christians voted for Trump in 2020 by a margin of 3 to 1, according to exit polls. They accounted for 45 percent of Trump's tally in that election, or about 34 million votes, and their views could have substantial influence in future debates over military and financial support for Ukraine.
This spring, particularly ahead of the votes in Congress on the aid package, there has been a flurry of reports and opinion articles in mainstream, conservative, and Christian-oriented U.S. media outlets describing Russia's war against Ukraine as an attack on religious freedom.
In an April 5 article in The Hill, Zelenskiy's chief of staff, Andriy Yermak, wrote that Russia is persecuting Christians and stifling religious freedom at home and in the parts of Ukraine it occupies. He described Ukraine as "Europe's largest evangelical country, with approximately 800,000 to 1 million individuals attending Protestant churches every Sunday."
A Competing Narrative
Ukrainian evangelicals and the government in Kyiv are not the only forces seeking to sway U.S. opinion with arguments about faith and persecution ahead of the election. A bitter rivalry between two competing Orthodox Christian churches in Ukraine, which has been aggravated by Russia's invasion, is also in the mix.
The politically charged conflict pits the Orthodox Church of Ukraine (OCU), which has the approval of the state, against the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (UOC), which formally cut its long-held ties with the Russian Orthodox Church in Moscow following the invasion but is accused by the Ukrainian authorities of maintaining links with Russian security services, advancing pro-Russian narratives, and collaborating with occupying forces in Russian-held parts of Ukraine.
As Congress began to debate a new package of aid for Ukraine in September, the UOC hired prominent lawyer Robert Amsterdam to lobby on its behalf. Amsterdam has accused the Zelenskiy government of oppressing Christians.
Ukrainian authorities have accused dozens of UOC clerics of treason and other crimes. The head of the UOC, Metropolitan Pavlo, has been under house arrest since last year, accused of inciting religious enmity and denying Russia's invasion of Ukraine. Amsterdam contended they have been accused without evidence.
A month prior to accepting UOC's cause pro bono, Amsterdam was hired by Vadym Novinskiy, a Russian-born tycoon who made his fortune in Ukraine, after Zelenskiy froze his assets and those of nine UOC priests. Novinskiy is a deacon and supporter of the UOC.
'Makes No Sense'
Tucker Carlson, a prominent conservative commentator who has railed against U.S. aid to Ukraine, has promoted claims that Zelenskiy's government is persecuting Christians. Amsterdam joined Carlson on his show in October to discuss the topic.
Vajdich said this narrative has been somewhat successful.
It caused "some audiences on the right to start regurgitating the argument that Zelenskiy is 'anti-Christian,' which makes no sense," he said.
Evangelicals like Ihor Bandura, vice president of the Ukrainian Baptist Union, are now working hard to fight that image.
Bandura arrived in Washington in late May as part of the Kyiv Global Outreach effort with evangelical pastor Mark Serhiyev and his brother, Anton Serhiyev.
After visiting think tanks and religious organizations in Washington, the men, the third group of Ukrainian evangelicals to arrive since March, are now visiting churches in Virginia, South Carolina, and Texas to share accounts of religious persecution under Russian forces.
Bandura is from Irpin, a Kyiv suburb that gained international attention in April 2022 as allegations of the torture and killing of hundreds of Ukrainian civilians at the hands of Russian soldiers emerged in the wake of their withdrawal.
The Serhiyevs are from Melitopol, a southern city that was captured by Russian forces early the full-scale invasion.
Bandura also plans to attend the June 9-12 Southern Baptist Convention, an annual event that attracts about 16,000 evangelicals from all 50 states, including some of the most renowned preachers. The event will be held in Indiana this year.
The Serhiyev brothers were to travel on to California, Oregon, and Washington state, meeting with evangelicals and speaking to Christian and other media outlets.
Bandura said it was disheartening that some fellow evangelicals believe Putin is a defender of Christian and family values.
"Nothing could be further from the truth," he said.
Bandura said he hoped for continued U.S. support from both parties in what he described as an existential war for Ukrainians.
"We cannot live without freedom. And of course, as Ukrainian Christians, we cannot imagine our life without religious freedom," he said.
