Search: “Ukraine”

Ukraine’s location as a gateway between East and West has always left it in a vulnerable position. The Russian invasion of 2022, Russian support of the breakaway republics of Donetsk and Luhansk, the occupation of the Crimea and the Euromaidan of 2014, and the Orange Revolution of 2004-5 all demonstrate Russia’s determination to dominate Ukraine. […]

Millions of people currently affected. Because of differing definitions, UNHCR (UN Refugee Agency) counted 27.1 million refugees in 2022 and 89 million forcibly displaced people worldwide. 42% of them are under 18 years old. Were these displaced to form a country, it would be the 17th most populous in the world! Recently, most refugees have […]

Pray for refugees and migrants in Turkey. Many Iranians fled the violence and Islamic extremism of the 1979 Revolution. This was followed by over a million Kurds during the Gulf War in 1991. Millions more fled into Türkiye from Syria and elsewhere during the civil war and the migrant crises of the 2010s. Türkiye has […]

Millions struggle against poverty and hopelessness. Russia has one of the world’s most elderly populations, along with low immigration numbers. Russia’s population drops by over 500,000 each year, and its birth rate is among the world’s lowest. At the same time, Russia’s abortion rate is one of the world’s highest. Alcoholism, drug addiction, suicide, and […]

The Russian Orthodox Church (ROC) survived Communism, and remained a major symbol of Russian identity. It sees itself as the preserver of a great Christian civilization handed down from Rome and Byzantium. It endured terrible persecution (along with other Christian groups) between 1920 and 1990 when up to 200,000 Christian leaders died as martyrs. Tragically, […]

Russia’s increasing predations in other former Soviet states fully manifested in the 2022 invasion of Ukraine. The invasion was preceded by years of meddling in Ukrainian politics and seizing Ukrainian territory. Other nations in the region have also felt Russia’s heavy hand in years past. Russia is a proud nation with a rich but often […]

The Chernobyl catastrophe in 1986 occurred in the Ukraine, but affected Belarus most severely. Subsequent environmental and human devastation is significant, with 20% of the nation’s land area affected, two million people uprooted and several thousand dead or dying from radiation-induced cancer. The government views “radiophobia” as the biggest problem now, since it prevents effective […]

Centuries of bitter conflict, oppression, and massacres left Armenians with hatred and mistrust of their neighbours. From 1915-1917, the Turks killed up to 1.5 million Armenians in a merciless genocide. Conflict with Azerbaijan, from 1988-1994 and then 2020-2023, ended in the cleansing of Nagorno-Karabakh of its Armenian population by the victorious Azerbaijani forces. The attendant […]